#i did have this summer booked out for travelling. and i'm thinking after my next vacation would be a good time to get back into it

[drowsydregon]

i can't wait to make my epix comeback (<<< has been sitting on like. 13 minifigure redesigns bc i still have abt. 11-13 more to do)

[the-other-art-blog]

Violet to Colin: "You're one of my most sensitive children."

The fandom: "How can she say that! Anthony, Benedict bla, bla bla..."

Colin is ONE of her most sensitive children. ONE, just ONE of them. And she's right.

ONE OF HER MOST SENSITIVE CHILDREN

He was the only one who indulged Violet and let her introduce him to debutantes in s1, while Anthony fucked his mistress and Ben went to orgies.

He was a complete gentleman with Marina. AND defended her when Anthony implied something about her.

And when he learned the truth, he confessed that he would have married her if she had told him the truth. 🥹

He danced with Pen after Cressida bullied her.

He wrote dozens of letters that his family of 8 could not care to respond to often. There are 8 of them!

He worried about Ben in s2 and supported him on his application to the Academy.

He learned the truth of Jack Featherington and instead of simply leaving, he did something about it. Not only did he help the Featherington family, but he saved other lords from being scammed.

He apologized to Will, explained why he acted rudely AND made amends to repair the damage by bringing men to Will's club.

He returned with gifts for everyone, but he seemed particularly thoughtful to his sisters and mother. A perfume for Hyacinth, music for Francesca, and a book for Eloise 🥹. Violet was so moved by his gift and here we have a lovely headcanon on the watch:

Then with Pen...

He runs after Pen, despite other men wanting to know about his adventures.

He acknowledges his mistake and immediately tries to apologize to Pen in the Four Seasons Ball.

The next day, he comes back with a heartfelt apology.

Then, he offers her help, despite the risk of scandal and embarrassment for him. He knows Pen has no one else.

He goes to see Pen at night to make sure she's ok. And when she asks him for a kiss, he does it so sweetly.

He is brave enough to leave the men who just want to know about his sexual life.

HE WAS BRAVE ENOUGH TO ASK, as soon as he put himself together and understood his feelings. He didn't play jealousy games like others, he went and put his heart on the table. He didn't even know about Pen's feelings and he risked it!

Some extracts from Colin's journals show that his family is always in his thoughts.

You can see why Violet, as the good mother that she is, can tell how sensitive he is.

Colin travels during the summer and comes back during the season to be with his family. It angers me that people think he's selfish for this when Benedict also abandons the family to fuck.

And yet, both Colin and Ben are sensitive. BOTH OF THEM, Francesca too. I wouldn't call Hyacinth or Gregory sensitive right now, and before s3, I wouldn't include Eloise either.

Anyway, I needed to get this out because I am so fucking tired of Kanthonies and Benophies making tantrums about this line.

I'm sure when s4 comes, we are going to see a moment between Violet and Ben where she acknowledges how amazing he is and everything he has done for the family. But not now, because this is COLIN'S SEASON.

(NOTE: If you are thinking of reblogging this post with the tag #Colin is the most sensitive, kindly fuck off. I made this post to fight the Kanthonies and Benophie that are attacking Colin, not to validate your own need to make Colin superior to other characters. HE IS ONE OF THE MOST SENSITIVE CHILDREN, ONE)

[lottiembae]

𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒔; shauna shipman x fem!reader

Summary: shauna shipman sees y/n differently after that night.

Warnings: fluff, smut, slow burn.

Note: English is not my first language.

"Why are you ginger?!" Some of them exclaimed at the unison.

Shauna rolls her eyes, blushing a little. "I lost a bet." She just said, letting her suitcase on the floor.

Jackie bit her smile, knowing the reason, after all it was a bet between them. The blonde crossed her arms and sat down, the salt on her hair wavering her locks. Shauna glares at her, giving her a sarcastic look.

"Okay. You can change upstairs, you staying with Y/N. Right corner, second door." Lottie informed her, eyeing the pair of friends discreetly.

They all have an entire week in Charlotte's beach house in Lake Key, a big house for all of them. A paradise they can enjoy.

Shauna hummed, scanning the living room and not seeing the mentioned one there, assuming she is upstairs or out in the pool with the rest. She is grateful to have Y/N like a roomie, she is the most tidy of all their friends. The -now- ginger girl changed into a bikini, grabbing her sunscreen, book and going downstairs.

The heat hit her body when she walked in the back garden, her friends having fun in the pool or laying on the grass chatting. Shauna laid a towel next to Taissa in the grass, depositing her things there and throwing herself in the pool, purposely doing it and smirking when they gasp and call her name.

"Shauna!" Y/N exclaimed happily, swimming towards her. "You look beautiful." She innocently said.

If this compliment came from one of her other friends, she would probably show her middle finger. But it's Y/N, the unique innocence of the group, Laura Lee left behind that adjective a long time ago.

"Thanks." Shauna muttered, clearing her throat and reciprocating the hug.

Y/N giggles, separating from the embrace but remaining close. "How's college?"

"Good! Stressing but really good. How about you? I heard you struggled at first." Shauna asks, rubbing the drops from her eyes.

"Yeah... Van went there a few days. I know, I'm like a child. But I spent years seeing your faces and then I didn't." Y/N explained, shrugging.

Shauna gives her a lipped smile. She struggled the first weeks too, used to see them, hang out and play soccer. "I don't think so. I understand what you mean." She shrugs too.

A splash interrupted their conversation, moving their faces to the side avoiding the water hit their faces. Another trail of curses from the ones sunbathing were heard, Natalie and Van ignored them with big smirks on their faces.

"Y/N, Jackie wanted you to go with her." Van commented.

Shauna saw how Y/N bit her lip but nod nonetheless, waving at them and walking out from the pool.

"Poor Y/N. Jackie is trying to corrupt her." Natalie hummed at Shauna, her eyes focused on the mentioned.

"Why?" Shauna asks, following her gaze. Jackie held Y/N's hand and went into the house, Lottie following behind.

"She said 'Y/N needs to wake up and have fun'." Van replied, imitating Jackie's voice. "Usually Lottie keeps an eye on Jackie, just in case." The redhead explains.

Shauna rolls her eyes, so typical of Jackie. However she could understand why, the blonde doesn't want people to mess with Y/N and maybe she has in mind this summer to make her less innocent.

The rest of the day Shauna inverted to catch time with her friends and finish the book she was reading this past day. When Jackie and Y/N returned, the first one had a mischievous smirk on her lips, a pallid Y/N travelled behind with Lottie wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

"Where were you guys?" Taissa is the first to ask.

"Discovering the world." Jackie mysteriously said, sitting in a chair and quitting her big black t-shirt, showing her soft orange bikini.

They all frowned by her answer. "I'm afraid to ask... But what did you do to her?" Natalie asks, throwing the uno cards on the towel, piercing her blue eyes on Jackie Taylor.

"Show them." Jackie says at Y/N, smiling reassuringly at her. "It was part of the bet." She shrugs her shoulders.

Lottie put herself in front of Y/N, clearly seeing the struggles on her face and deciding to put a stop. "Enough Jackie. She did it, let her be comfortable."

Shauna squinted her eyes when heard Jackie said bet. Internally she rolled her eyes, what have Jackie with bets? And why does her opponent always lose?

Y/N gave Lottie a grateful look and went to sit down away from Jackie, it needed to be something big when Y/N did it. Van muttered something and stepped towards Y/N, bringing a chair with themselves and sitting next to her. Shauna kept an eye on them while Natalie and Taissa tried to worm out what she did to her.

"It's sexy." Jackie was the only thing she said before walking in again, muttering something about starting to fix up to party up.

Taissa ran after her, the group dissolving slowly to follow Jackie's steps. Shauna waited for Y/N and Van to join her when she stood up and they walked towards her direction.

The three walked in and Van disappeared to the left once they were upstairs, making Y/N and Shauna snort when they commented something about waiting an hour for Taissa to be ready.

"It's a good thing that we have our own bathroom in our bedrooms." Shauna commented, opening the door to their shared bedroom. Y/N hummed behind her, her brown eyes catches her red eyes and the dry cheeks. "Do you want to go shower first?" She offers, letting her things on her bed next to the window.

"No, you can go first. I'm going to see what I can wear." Y/N gave her a smile, going to the closet and opening it.

Shauna muttered okay and grabbed some comfortable clothes, disappearing in the fancy bathroom. She doesn't get too late there, putting her clothes on quickly and brushing her hair while coming back to the bedroom.

"All yours." She said at Y/N, seeing her sitting on her bed and watching outside hugging her knees.

"Those jeans stand out your ass." Y/N giggling said when Shauna gave her back at her. Shauna blushed, letting her brush on her bed. "Shit, it made you feel uncomfortable? I don't say it it's like a bad thing." Y/N rants out, standing up and explaining with her hands.

The compliment deepens her blush, the burn on cheeks worsen it. "It's okay, Y/N. You should shower up, I don't want to hear Natalie bark out later." She avoided it, chuckling nervously by her own comment.

Y/N nods, grabbing her clothes and going in. While Shauna waits for Y/N, she decides to put her clothes in her part of the closet. She was the last to approach there, the others coming two days earlier. She finished and Y/N didn't come out, she is really taking so long.

"I'm ready! Sorry to take so long." Y/N opened the door and came out with a summer yellow and white dress, her burn cheeks framing her beauty. She let out a giggle while putting her earrings when saw Shauna looking at her with her jaw dropped, her brown eyes looking her up and down. "I'm that bad?" She briefly pouts, looking at her dress.

Shauna shakes her head, clearing her throat. "N-No!" She stammered, closing her eyes momentarily. "You look beautiful, Y/N! I just..." Shauna thinks hard for something else to say, her blush intensifying. "You look great." She said poorly, biting her lower lip cursing herself in her mind.

Y/N let out a grin, happily to hear her friend compliment her. "I'm grabbing my purse and we can go down." She let her brush on her bed, just like Shauna and do what she said.

When they approached the living room, some whistling from their friends were heard. "Damn, Y/N! You look hot." Natalie says lowly, eyeing Y/N.

Laura Lee let out a chuckle and pinched Y/N's cheeks. "Stop, Nat! She is blushing." The blonde kindly says, rubbing her hand up and down on her back. "But she is right." She whispered in her ear, however Shauna heard her, making her jaw clenched.

"Thank you girls." Y/N shyly said, side hugging Laura Lee and later Natalie, intertwining her arm with hers.

"Woah! You worked on that ass." Van shocked said, stepping next to her and their jaw dropped when her blue eyes met Y/N's figure. "I died and I went to heaven?"

Shauna shakes her head with a small smile while the others laugh. Their laughter intensified when someone else cleared her throat behind them, a smug Taissa was there with her arms crossed about her chest, raising an eyebrow.

"And you come back to actually die." Natalie smugly said. Van rolled their eyes, glaring at her. The dyed blonde put her hands in the air, but her smirk remains.

"Look at her." Van leaned on Taissa and whispered, signaling with their head towards Y/N.

Taissa rolled her eyes and stepped down, going to the kitchen winking at Y/N when passed by her side, Y/N gave her a sheepish smile and Van trailed behind her.

"Damn, girl!" A raspy voice said behind Shauna, smacking her ass.

"Jackie!" Shauna hissed. However Jackie chuckles to stop abruptly when step next to her, her doe eyes focusing on Y/N.

Lottie passed them and winked at Y/N, making a gesture with her hands at her. "We are going out now!" She hummed, going to the front door.

Natalie made a signal with her hands, stopping them. "We need to check on her all night. I'm not letting any dude rub her up."

"Who?" Y/N asks, confused.

They all looked at each other.

•••

"My head hurts..." Jackie muttered when she got downstairs, sitting in the bar stool next to Shauna and leaning her head on her shoulder, a brief pout on her face.

Shauna snorted, but that simple sound made her flinch, Jackie too. Last night all of them had fun, well, not all of them, they made a bet (yes, other) and Laura Lee lost, meaning that she needed to take care of them (Y/N).

"Be quiet, Shauna." Jackie groaned.

Taissa sat down with a water bottle next to the pair, Van offering to make the lunch that day, since surprisingly they barely drank last night. Lottie offered to help the redhead, but Van pushed her next to Taissa and declined her offer with a gentle smile, making the three people sitting there release a relief breath.

"Where are the others?" Jackie raised her head on Shauna's shoulder, her eyes half open looking at Lottie and Taissa.

Taissa shrugged. "I just came down."

"Nat is asleep. Laura Lee and Y/N are in the pool." Lottie informed them in a low voice, leaning her head in her hand tiredly.

Jackie hummed just in time when Y/N came inside giggling with Laura Lee flying behind her with a grin.

"That smells good, Van. Do you need some help?" Y/N kindly asks, giving a smile to her friends there. Jackie called her with her hands, once Y/N approached Jackie and sat her down on her lap.

"Actually, yes please. Can you cut the vegetables?" The redhead requested her.

Y/N agreed, fighting with Jackie to release her. "Jackie! I need help Van." She said giggling.

"A kiss and I leave you." The blonde demanded, making Shauna roll her eyes.

Y/N didn't think about it too much, kissing her cheek a few times. Jackie unwrapped both arms from her body content when Y/N did what she asked.

Laura Lee sat down next to Lottie, massaging her shoulders with a smile. Shauna gazes at them, curious. Lately, she noticed how those two spent more time together, maybe the fact that they are going to the same college has something to do with it. It's not like Lottie and Laura didn't get along in the past, the brunette spent an amount of time defending Laura Lee from bullies.

Shauna decided to help too, letting a whining Jackie sit alone. She put on the cutlery and offered to wake up Natalie when the food was ready. The lunch passed without too much energy from half of them, the only conversation heard was between Laura Lee, Van and Y/N. Once they are done, Lottie shoves them out and cleans the dirty dishes, but a stubborn Natalie stays and helps her.

"You two put sunscreen on!" Jackie threw at Shauna and Y/N two bottles of it. "I don't want you two to get serious damage for not taking care of your skin." The blonde sternly said.

Shauna opened an eye and saw her stern look on her. She doesn't bother Y/N doing it, because she knows that Y/N is putting sunscreen. She rolled her eyes and opened the top, putting some cream on her burned cheeks.

"Don't forget the rest of your body." Jackie sarcastically said with a smile before she lay down on her towel, next to Shauna.

Y/N gave her a funny look, holding her laugh. Shauna pokes her tongue out, throwing the sunscreen at her when she finishes.

"Jackie! Shauna threw the sunscreen at me." Y/N childish said, laughing when Shauna gave her an offended look.

Jackie gazed at Shauna with a suspicious look, but holding a laugh for Y/N's behaviour.

"I thought she wanted it." Shauna made an excuse, biting her lip. She shrugs her shoulders, waiting for Jackie to look away and give Y/N a warning look, standing up and running after her. She caught her quickly, Y/N was still laughing between her arms. "You regret it." She muttered, throwing Y/N into the pool with a smirk.

A scream fell from her mouth but she was cut when Shauna threw her in the pool. "Shauna!" She exclaimed, wiping her eyes. Shauna has an amused smirk painted on her lips.

"What happened?" Van came, a hawaiian shirt on.

"Van! she threw me here because she can't be an adult." Y/N pointed with a finger at Shauna.

The brunette gasped. "Me!? What about you? You can't be an adult." Shauna exclaimed indignantly, looking at Van, who has an amused smirk on their face, annoying Shauna more.

Van bit their lip and wink to Y/N. Shauna saw it and gasped offended. The redhead pushes her once she stays looking at Y/N. "Sorry, Shauna. I tripped." They feigned regret, but their blue eyes lit with mischief.

"Van." Shauna hissed, scowling next to Y/N, who is laughing by her side.

Y/N wrapped her arms around her shoulder and hugged her. However Shauna nudged her rib, but she missed and nudged her boob, making Y/N let out a pain sound.

"Are you okay?" Shauna gazes at her with worry, seeing the pain on her face. "I don't want to hit that zone..."

"I'm fine." Y/N breath out, putting a hand on her chest.

Shauna notices something when her eyes fall to her chest unconsciously. "Do you have a piercing?" She asks incredulously. All of the people who can wear it, Y/N is not one of them.

Y/N blushed and looked briefly at Van. This one wears a worried expression, not hearing Shauna question. "Yes... I did yesterday."

The ginger opened her eyes and mouth. An idea popping in her mind. "Wait... That's why you all disappeared?" Y/N nodded, still with a hand on her chest.

"I'm going inside." Y/N whispered, going out of the pool and after wrapping a towel around her, she got inside. Shauna felt a little bad, even if she didn't want to give that hit intentionally.

Van patted her back and muttered a reassuring word. When minutes passed and Y/N didn't come out, Shauna decided to check on her. She walked towards their shared bedroom, finding it empty but the bathroom's door closed. She knocked a few times and called her name.

"You can come in." Y/N said.

Shauna opened the door and stopped on her tracks when saw Y/N topless, a red shadow covering her cheeks. "Is it okay?" She asks in a low voice, avoiding her naked chest.

"I think so. It has a red mark but nothing serious." Y/N explained.

Her brown eyes fell to her chest, a metal piercing on her left boob. It seems a little inflamed around the nipple, but that's all. She saw how Y/N put on some cream there.

"It hurt you?" Shauna whispered.

Y/N raised her head and saw a sad expression on her face, her half wet ginger hair covering part of her cheeks, her brown eyes showing more of the colour.

"Don't worry, Shawn. I'm fine." Y/N reassuringly said, giving a smile.

Shauna rolled her eyes. "Don't call me that." She said in a hushed tone. She hates that they call her with that name. She removed her hair from her vision and walked out, sitting on her bed and waited for Y/N to finish.

Y/N came out and sat down on her bed, now with her purple bikini on. Shauna gazes at her, every gesture silently. She wanted to ask some questions, but she doesn't want to overstep. The other raised her eyes to her and watched her expression, standing up and stepping towards her.

"Don't think about it. Let's go out." She grabs her hand and pulls her up. Shauna gave her a lipped smile, wrapping an arm around her waist.

"It's kinda hot." She murmurs, suppressing a laugh when Y/N turns to look at her with raised eyebrows. "I'm surprised you did it. You can use it against Nat when she tells you you need to loosen up." She said joking.

"I will keep it in mind." Y/N said with a thinking face.

•••

That evening they decided to go sightseeing in the small town. Shauna and Jackie split up from their friends and went by their count, sharing the last news on their lives since they are going to different colleges.

Shauna licks her chocolate ice cream, walking by the promenade. Jackie ranting by her side eating her vanilla ice cream.

"That's Y/N?" Jackie interrupted, her eyes focusing in the distance. Shauna followed her eyes and saw not far away Y/N sitting in a bench with Taissa braiding her hair.

They walked towards the pair, waving to an enthusiastic Y/N waving at them. Jackie grabbed her chin and pecked her cheek, offering her ice cream at her.

"No, thank you."

Shauna sat down next to her, Jackie sat down on her lap. She is not bothered by it, actually she is used to this gesture. She remembers when Y/N told her about the bet before and leaned on her ear, muttering something about the piercing. Jackie looks at her with that innocent doe eyes, shrugging.

Y/N has a few strands of hair braided, thanks to Taissa. Shauna's glued on Y/N's profile while the other three started a conversation, she decided to listen to them. This time, Y/N had her cheeks burned from the other day, thanks to Jackie it kept at bay. Her grin warming her chest with every reply Y/N made, always with illusion or loving explaining something at them that they don't know. It doesn't matter how dumb the question is, Y/N never would reply with a bad word.

"Nat and Van went to that pub." Taissa informed them once she finished braid Y/N's hair.

"I want to go to Marco's library." Y/N says, standing up and walking towards the place without receiving a reply from them.

Shauna muttered at them that she goes with Y/N, wanting some new books too. Jackie nodded more relaxed this time. It's funny, the only one challenging Y/N to wake up and she is the first worried about her going alone. The ginger steps quickly to Y/N side, throwing the napkin in the trash.

They walked in, Y/N walking mindlessly through the shelves of books until she reached her destination, romantic novels. Shauna bit the inside of her cheek and wandered to the horror one, the smell of lavender mixed with cinnamon relaxing her.

When Shauna grabbed a book to read the inside cover, to the other side was Y/N with a few books on her hands, a brief frown on her eyebrows. She didn't know why that simple sight made Shauna's heartbeat accelerate. It's the contrast of the white dress with her sun kissed skin, eyes' colour accentuating, plump lips, long eyelashes, or her cute braids on her salt hair? She can't put a finger on it, but feeling attracted to Y/N, it definitely wasn't on her plans for that summer.

"Do you see something interesting?" Lottie startled her, giving a little jump on her spot.

"You scared me." Shauna muttered, glaring at her.

Lottie apologizes, a smirk on her lips. The tall brunette wandered between the shelves, a few books in a hand. Shauna grabbed the book she wanted to read from the past month and followed Lottie, who now is with Y/N.

"I don't know, Lot. I want this, but maybe I could buy it next time." Y/N said, letting saying book again on their place.

She walked to the cash register, Shauna bit her lip and quit off from Lottie's hands the book Y/N left behind a few moments.

"Are you sure?" Lottie asked behind her. However Shauna ignored her and positioned herself behind Y/N to pay.

Once their visit to Lake Key was over, they decided to make dinner and stay there to party, gathering in the living room in a circle. Natalie prepared them their drinks, slowly sipping on it while they chatted.

Until Jackie cleared her throat. "Guys! I want to play a game. What about a simple one, truth or dare?" She proposed, giving a big sip from her ron with coke.

After bickering for a while, they agreed.

"Okay. You go first." Natalie points with her finger at Jackie.

The blonde shrugs, agreeing with it. She chose dare, and Natalie made her swim naked in the pool. Jackie accepted and quit off her clothes while walking outside, their friends laughing with her.

"Alright! I did it, it's my turn to choose." Jackie says with a towel around her body and sitting on the floor. A smirk on her face. "I chose Y/N."

And it made sense for all of them, -less Y/N- why Jackie wanted to play it.

"It's simple. Go to my bedroom and on top of my bed you find what you need to do." Jackie indicated when Y/N chose dare.

Shauna gave her a questioning look, but Jackie ignored her with the same smirk plastered the whole time. They waited a few minutes there waiting for Y/N to come back, chatting animatedly.

Y/N came back, however she changed her clothes. Now she is wearing a red bikini, but a short cover of the full piece. Her demeanor turned shy, chewing her lip nervously.

"Show us!" Jackie exclaimed, clapping with her hands excited.

The silence made in the room once Y/N took off her shorts, turning on heels to them to appreciate the small piece of clothes. Shauna opened her mouth, her pupils dilating from the sight in front of her. She gave a big sip from her drink when felt her mouth dry, the first to speak was Jackie.

"Nice ass, girl!" She cheered her.

Natalie licked her lips, still processing how hot her friend looks. She looked around her, their faces one by one and less Jackie, all of them seemed affected by it.

"That's a dare?" Natalie muttered, trying to play cool.

Jackie glares at her, crossing her arms. "Yes. For Y/N is a good dare, shut up."

"I agree." Van lowly said, their blue eyes dilated and their freckles hiding by a shadow of pink on their cheeks.

"Wait... Is that a piercing?" Taissa frowned, noticing it when her eyes landed on Y/N's chest.

Shauna moves a little uncomfortable, their reactions were immediate, well from the three ones who don't know. Inevitably her eyes fell on Y/N's ass, the heat sprayed inside her body. She made a messy bun, hearing their friends reactions.

"Van knew it." Taissa spoke again, noticing the lack of participation on this.

The redhead guilty shrugged. "I did. She told me the other day."

Y/N put on her shorts again and sat down where she was before, between Lottie and Laura Lee.

The game ended quickly, moving to dance on the improvised dance floor in the living room or the back garden. Usually Shauna hates something related to parties, but these moments, where are her and her friends, she treasures them. Lottie and Laura Lee were talking on the couch, next to a Natalie affected by Y/N revelation, who was happily dancing with her. Shauna drinks in a bar stool while Jackie is making some snacks for them. Van and Taissa chat quietly in a corner with silly smiles on their faces.

Two hours later, Shauna flies behind a giggling Y/N to their shared room. They are the first ones to call it a night, Shauna feels a little relaxed but with her senses intact, while Y/N looks more intoxicated than her.

Once in their respective bed, Shauna hears how her friend can't stop moving. "What's the problem?" She rasped out, her eyes looking in her direction in vain, the darkness didn't let her see properly.

"It sting a little..." Y/N slurred out.

Shauna frowned, but soon understood what she meant. "Then, quit it off." She suggested.

A few seconds later she heard something dropping on the floor followed by a relief sigh. Shauna turned her head, and even if she couldn't see her, she could appreciate her silhouette and it made her jaw clench. Why? Why can't she see her properly why is it turning her on? Maybe it is because she knew about the piercing and it excited her? Shauna groans, now her turn to move on her bed, finding the room very hot right now.

She didn't know when she left herself asleep, but when Shauna opened her eyes, the sun hit directly on her face, the dizziness on her head didn't help at all. She grunts, with her eyes half opened and walks towards the bathroom, noticing the empty bed on her way there.

Shauna takes a short shower, even if she probably would throw herself in the pool, however she didn't want to smell sweaty. She put on her black bikini and put on an old grey sporty shorts and went downstairs, no one was there.

She checked the back garden and there was Y/N, having some breakfast. The girl noticed her and waved, calling with her hand to go there.

"I made breakfast for all, but I'm guessing they would wake up after lunch. That is soon..." Y/N poured coffee in a cup and offered it at Shauna.

"Thanks..." She kindly says, taking it and sitting next to her. She notices the book she bought for her last day, remembering with a smile how Y/N kissed her face and muttering how much she loves her. "You like it?"

"I love it! Amanda is so brave. I wish I could be like her." Y/N commented, biting her toast and continued to read.

"You are brave." Shauna lowly said, sipping from the cup and looking at her.

Y/N gifted her with a warm smile, putting a hand on her forearm. "You are nice. But I'm not. You are brave or Van. But not me."

Shauna frowned, not liking how Y/N talked about herself. "I wish I could see people like you. Or believe everyone is good." She states, grabbing the hand on her forearm between her hands. "You are not afraid of telling them how you feel. I remember when you fought with Jackie in the last year of high school because she mocked Arnold Phillips and you defended him. I was thrilled and she did too." She saw how her cheeks darkened. Shauna appreciates the little messy braids, it even looks better now, she mindlessly puts away a strand of hair, a fond smile when Y/N shrinks because it feels ticklish when her fingertips brushed her neck.

Shauna can't stop looking at her, her hand placing now on her back and caressing it carefully. She leaned on the table, getting closer to her. Y/N brought a hand to her cheek and brushed her thumb there, actually she wiped something there.

"Better." Y/N murmurs, her eyes meeting her brown ones. Shauna swallowed and slowly leaned on her, stopping when their noses brushed with each other. It surprises her when Y/N grabs her face between her hands and kisses her.

It's short but gentle. Shauna chases her a second later, not containing herself and introducing her tongue on Y/N's mouth, exploring and dominating. Her hands were placed on her hips in a firm grip, leaning her head aside to kiss her better. Their lungs burned, making them separate to catch air.

Shauna trailed kisses on her jaw, sneaking a hand under the yellowjackets' shirt she is wearing, caressing her skin. She stopped when Y/N let out a moan, her gaze finding her face.

"Stop looking at me like that... Your stare is deep." Y/N murmurs, looking somewhere else, avoiding her gaze.

The ginger bit her lip, kissing her cheek and separating from her. Bringing her hand out of her shirt and deciding to finish her breakfast.

"You are beautiful, it's not my fault." Shauna replied confidently.

"Shauna!" Y/N whined, making her laugh.

A grunt from behind made them look that direction, seeing a zombie Natalie stepping slowly towards them. She greeted them quietly, pouring an orange juice in a cup and grabbing a croissant.

"You look horrible." Y/N commented, Shauna held her laugh when Natalie glared at her.

"Sorry, miss perfect. Next time I guard you, then I can avoid being the next day like this." She ironically said, signaling herself.

Shauna closed her eyes, the sun kissing her exposed skin and luring her. Natalie commented on them what happened after they left, laughing when Jackie fell or Van hit their face with the glass window.

"Sunscreen." Someone said, something fell on Shauna's lap. The ginger opened her eyes and looked at it and the person who threw it, Charlotte Matthews. "You are matching your hair by now."

Y/N snorted, hiding her mouth with a hand. Lottie wink at her, grabbing some fruit. Shauna poked her finger on her neck and saw how she shrank, giggling and putting away her hand.

They all agreed to spend the day at the beach, to Y/N and Nat's idea. They swim, sunbathing while they relax and play volleyball. Shauna's mind was a spiral, thinking about the kiss she shared with her friend, a friend she thought never saw like something else. The best part? Shauna wants to kiss her again, and wrap her arms around her waist to be nearer her, maybe her hands sneaking to her ass and squeezing it, her lips trailing wet kisses on her neck while Y/N let out moans, like before, then-... Who's that guy? And why is he smirking at her in a flirty manner?

Shauna clenched her fist and stood up, stepping fast towards them and pushing that guy away from Y/N.

"Stay away from her." Shauna scowled with a fierce gaze, putting herself in front of Y/N.

"Shauna! He is a nice boy, stop." Y/N threw the volleyball's ball and helped the blonde guy up.

It infuriated Shauna. "He wants to get on your pants, Y/N!" She gritted, her brown eyes throwing daggers at the innocent blonde boy.

Of course when they went to the beach and Y/N decided to wear what Jackie gifted her last night, some stupid guy should approach.

Fuck Jackie and fuck that guy.

Shauna saw how Y/N removed her gaze from her, her cheeks turning a soft shadow of pink. She felt bad to speak to her like that, usually she would use other words.

"I'm talking with her. That's all, relax." He said in a gentle tone, raising both hands in the air. However Shauna knew better, years being Jackie's best friend teach her experience with the opposite gender. And that guy, wants something else than talking with Y/N.

Shauna gave a sarcastic smile, but before she could give a sardonic comment, Natalie showed up, Lottie behind her with Jackie.

"What happened?" Natalie asks looking at her friends, then her blue eyes notice the blonde guy, making her frown. "Who are you?"

Jackie puts herself next to Shauna, crossing her arms on her chest, while Lottie grabs Y/N's hand, bringing her with hers.

"I'm Neil, nice to meet you." He said, waving with a nervous smile. Shauna snorted mentally, he didn't look like that before.

"Hi, Neil." Natalie said in a fake nice voice, walking towards the tall guy, with every step letting a mark of humid footprint on the sand. "Stay away from her." She patted his shoulder with a low laugh, signaling towards Y/N. "I know the guys like you. Out."

Neil bit his lip, his eyes falling on Y/N. Then, he gave a quiet laugh, his demeanor changing completely. "You all can't be protecting her forever." He muttered, a smug smirk playing on his lips before he turned on his heels and walked out.

Jackie held Natalie's wrist, the same with Shauna. "Stop! That stupid is gone." She murmurs, pushing them both to where they are.

Shauna's eyes fell on Y/N, who is with Lottie. She left behind the bickering that Jackie and Natalie started and grabbed her wrist kindly, stopping their friends.

"Can I talk to you?" Shauna timid asks. Y/N nods slowly, Lottie let them some privacy walking back to her place on the towel. The ginger took her to the seashore, this time her hand intertwined with Y/N's one, playing with her fingers. "I'm sorry to say that." She started, looking at her surroundings. "I don't like the way he was looking at you and... I should let you choose if you want to talk with him or not." She finishes, knowing very well that she will interfere if some dude tries something with her.

Y/N caressed the palm of her hand with her thumb. "Are you jealous?" She hummed, stepping closer.

Shauna frowned, her gaze now on her smug eyes. "No. I'm not. I only... I want the best for you. That's all." She said, shrugging her shoulders.

Why does Y/N think she is jealous? I mean, Natalie acted like her too, is she jealous too? Shauna let out a scoff for this thought.

"I'm jealous." Y/N admitted in a calm tone.

This confession made her feel more confused. "Why?" She can't hide her stupor.

"I saw a few boys looking at you. Your ass. They eat you with his eyes. I don't like it." Y/N explained, her turn to shrug her shoulders.

Shauna relaxed. She didn't notice their eyes on her, thankfully. But she notices the only one on Y/N, and maybe, just maybe, Shauna felt the same.

"You don't need to worry. I'm not interested in them." Shauna whispers, letting her hand out but embracing her waist with an arm and hiding her head on her neck. She feels how Y/N relaxed on her arms and wrapped hers on her neck, playing with her hair.

"I want to kiss you..." Y/N shyly said, a lipped smile on her face when Shauna fixed her chocolate eyes on her.

"I can make an excuse and go home and kiss." Shauna offered, hearing how Y/N let out a melodic laugh, inevitably painting an involuntary smile on her face.

•••

It's been three days since Shauna and Y/N kissed for the first time. Three days that they can't stop kissing. They shared this affection where they are alone in their room, away from their friends or when they are around them, when they aren't looking Y/N stole a kiss from her lips, letting Shauna speechless.

A sigh hit Shauna's face when she separated from her bruised and red lips. Her fingers caressed her cheek and removed a strand of hair from her face, giggling softly while memorizing her features for later fantasizing with her or rant on her journal about how Y/N makes her feel.

They are laying on Shauna's bed, the rays of the full moon hitting Y/N's face, it's time like this Shauna doesn't hate that window. Y/N's hand is playing with her ginger hair, pulling at it every time Shauna bit her lip or sucked her tongue.

"Are you fine there?" Shauna hummed with a hoarse voice, brushing her nose with hers. She can avoid hiding her smugness.

They don't trespass to the other step. It's not like Shauna didn't think about it, it's mainly for Y/N, she didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable, so she happily accepts it.

"Here is hot..." She whispered, with a hand fan herself.

"The window is open." Shauna commented, looking briefly at the window.

"Shauna." Y/N calls her in a soft voice, the mentioned turned to look at her. "Do you feel attracted to me?" Shauna could appreciate how shy Y/N asked this.

"Y/N, I can't stop thinking about you. It's weird to say it loudly, but you are in my mind a lot." Shauna admitted, the burn on cheeks got a bay thanks to Jackie or Lottie to put sunscreen on. But she can feel the warmth on her cheeks just like if that same afternoon she burned all over again.

"You are in my mind too, Shippy. It's funny to think now how intimidated I felt about you in high school." Shauna frowned. Y/N saw her and immediately clarified. "You are hard to let people in, always attached to Jackie and I told you about it before, your gaze is so deep that I feared you could know what I'm thinking."

"That's why you nodded or gave me a short answer?" Shauna asks quietly, now understanding a few things. Y/N hummed an affirmative. "You are right, I don't let people know me easily. But I never would treat you or let anyone talk to you badly. I... We fought with some asshole to defend you. Don't ask and think about them, they are stupid." Shauna says quickly after her confession. "Why do you ask about me that...?" She tried to change the subject, also mostly for curiosity.

"I want to have sex with you." Shauna sometimes forgets how direct she is. Her blush deepens, gladly the dark hides her cheeks.

But it surprises her how natural she said it, and it made her think about it. "Have you had sex before?" She asks, it's the first time she actually thinks Y/N had sex before, she wondered about it but soon dismissed it.

Y/N nods, moving her head to a side. "Why you ask?" Shauna stares at her shocked, her mouth half open and holding her breath. Y/N roll her eyes, it didn't surprise her Shauna having that reaction, it's the same Van had when she told them. "I know that you all think I'm innocent, something I will not discuss... But I'm curious too."

"Sorry..." She apologised, breathing normally again. She blinked a few times, questions popping on her head. "Who? I mean, I know him?" She asks in a low voice.

"No, he is a college friend."

Shauna nods, laying fully by her side. She huffed, rubbing her eyes. "I need to ask it." She said, putting her hands down and fixing her eyes on her, seeing her curious eyes on her. "Did you do it because you wanted?"

"Yeah... I never would do something I don't want." This answer calmed Shauna, thankful Y/N didn't feel social pressure and did it for that.

"Can we go to sleep?" Shauna murmurs, feeling tired. Y/N hummed with a small smile, she kissed Shauna's cheek and proceeded to stand up, but the ginger stopped her, wrapping an arm now on her waist. "Stay here."

They fell asleep with Shauna hugging Y/N, many thoughts in her mind, dissipate when the other started to play with her hair, something Y/N likes and she didn't complain.

The next morning when they woke up and got downstairs, too quiet and finding a note in the fridge.

"We are at the beach, see you there. Jackie xx." Y/N read out loud. "And why didn't they wake up us? I would do it. You know what? I don't feel like going to the beach, if you want to go, have fun." She said in an adorable piss voice, in Shauna's opinion. She walked around and started to make breakfast.

"I like your idea. What do you want to do?" Shauna hummed, going to hug her from behind and kissing her shoulder.

Y/N looks up, thinking. "I want to go eat ice cream in Lake Key. Tomorrow we will get stuck here doing our suitcases and cleaning the house."

On Friday, they all would go to Wiskayok and finish the summer there before coming back to their respective colleges.

Shauna removed her hair aside, peppering kisses on her neck. "I like that." She just wants to spend some time alone with her before they come back.

So that's what they did. After finishing breakfast they changed their clothes and adventure to the small town. It's weird how freely they felt with every shared kiss without worry if someone saw them and judged. It helps that the only way is a solitary dirt road, nobody lives for that area, only the Matthews' family.

They let out their intertwined hands once they entered the town, exploring some places that they never went to before or just walking while laughing for anything. They agreed to eat the ice cream after lunch, for Shauna's luck because she made a little picnic, surprising Y/N.

It's the soft laugh that Y/N let out when Shauna awakened from her mind, too entrance on studying every feature, line and simple detail on Y/N's face that she zoned out. Shauna left the throwable plate on the grass, clearing her throat.

"Have a date with me." Shauna blurted out, mostly because she was rephrasing it in her mind and it slipped out. She blushes the moment she realizes how she asked this. Exchange Y/N raised her head and slowly formed a smile. "What I want to say is that... I thought about us, and I want to go on a proper date with you, if you want of course."

Y/N put her hand on top of hers. "I love to."

"Really?" Shauna asked, a little speechless. Y/N giggles by her reaction, nodding with her head. "You don't would regret it, I promise." She reassured her, carefully intertwining their fingers.

After they finished, Shauna stubbornly paid for their ice cream. They eat it while they walk towards the house, holding hands the moment they step out of the town. Laughs filled the way, ice cream kisses and rosy cheeks.

Shauna let her hand once they approached the fence, opening the doors and letting Y/N pass first. They come back and the house is still empty.

"I want to lay on the sofa, my feet hurt." Y/N commented, letting her bag on the coat stand and laying down in the black couch.

"Come here, I'll take you upstairs." Shauna offered, opening her arms for her to jump.

Y/N let out a delighted sound and jumped on her arms, wrapping her legs on her waist and both arms around her shoulders, leaning her head there too. Shauna held her and walked towards their bedroom, laying Y/N on her bed carefully and getting on top of her when Y/N grabbed her t-shirt and pulled Shauna towards hers.

With only a look, Shauna knew what Y/N wanted. She wants it too, if she is being honest, but what happens if their friends come and surprise them by doing it?

"Are you sure?" Shauna asks in a gentle whisper, her hair coming to her eyes and private to her to keep gazing Y/N, until this one removes with her fingers the strand of hair out. Her hands are too busy supporting her weight on the mattress.

"Very sure." Y/N whispered back, closing the distance and smashing her lips on hers.

Shauna let out a low moan, reciprocating it and soon turning in a hungry kiss. A hand sneaks under her baby blue shirt, slowly tracing her abdomen until reach her chest, squeezing with the bra on, feeling the piercing there. She grunted on the kiss when she felt it, breaking the kiss and taking off her shirt, delighted by the views.

Y/N pulls Shauna's shirt, making the ginger to raise her arms up, letting Y/N take it out. Her brown eyes admired how Y/N held her breath when her gaze met her abdomen, a smirk creeping on her face. A finger traced her stomach, gently scratching her abs.

"I think we have some weaknesses..." Shauna rasped out, chuckling.

"You kept playing soccer?"

Shauna nods. "Yeah. Casually my first friends played soccer and they created a team, like a hobby. I don't mind play there sometime." She explains.

Y/N's fingers get lost on her hair, pressing her head towards hers and starting another kiss. They slowly took out their clothes, Shauna's mouth went immediately on Y/N's chest, no resistance anymore and took her left nipple on her mouth, biting there and tasting the metal too, gaining a whimper by Y/N and her nails digging on her shoulders.

Shauna spent a long time there, when she got satisfied, admiring the new red marks and saliva covered on Y/N's chest, with her red lips peppered wet kisses until reach her mouth, giving her a languid kiss.

After they need to breathe again, Shauna takes advantage when Y/N still has her eyes closed and slowly sneaks her right hand between her thighs, soon meeting how wet Y/N is between her fingers. The ginger let out a groan, her dilated brown eyes catching sight of -now half open- Y/N's eyes and reddened cheeks. While they keep gazing at each other, her hand meets Y/N's entrance and without warning introducing a finger, grunting when she notices how tight she is.

Her nails digged on her shoulders once again, making Shauna let out a hiss of pain. A soft sound escaped from Y/N's mouth, once she felt comfortable with her finger inside of her, Shauna started to move it slowly while her thumb rubbed circles, creating more sounds slipping from her mouth, making Shauna drunk hearing them.

Another finger was introduced, her movements becoming faster and the first moans echoing in the room. Shauna involuntarily starts to move her hips in search of some friction, the wetness on her center increasing. The sweat on their bodies is more present, their hair stinging on their faces, framing their faces in a sexy form. With three fingers inside Y/N, her orgasm is near.

Shauna gave her a wet kiss, unable to control. Y/N came on her fingers, muffling her orgasm in her mouth. Their chest moved in sync, their lungs asking for air. The ginger took her hand out of her, the free one on top of Y/N's knee while slowly, her right one approaches her vision, the smell hitting her nose. After a few seconds where her eyes stuck looking at her hand, she took it to her mouth, a porn sound slipped from her mouth the moment her fingers met her tongue, testing Y/N. Her eyes rolled behind her head, her tongue wrapping her fingers and sucking slowly, testing every fluid.

When she opened them again, was met by hypnotised eyes gazing at her, biting her lip. Shauna let out a small smirk, putting down her now clean hand. Before she could make a comment, Y/N changed their positions, now Shauna is laying her back on the mattress and Y/N is straddling her. Shauna put both hands on her knees, caressing them, gazing at Y/N from a new angle. Her eyes fell from her marked chest to her half hidden shaved pussy, meeting her stomach side.

"Promise me something." Y/N said in a scratchy voice, calling her attention.

Shauna nods, captivated by her beauty. "Anything."

Y/N gave her a small grin, leaning her head to the same level as her, lowering it a few centimeters. "Don't dye your hair. I love how this colour looks on you... It matches your eyes, making them have a deeper look, if that is possible..." She ranted, admiring her ginger hair sprayed out on the pillow in soft waves. "You look good too with your natural colour hair, but this one... I really like it." She finishes in a low voice.

"I promise you that I will have it for a long time from now on." Shauna said with a cheeky smile, knowing very well that she would be stuck with that hair colour only for her. Then, she put a hand on her back neck and pushed her face towards hers, sealing the promise with a passionate kiss.

When Y/N moved her hips involuntarily, Shauna felt a patch of wetness on her abdomen, and groaning by this, she took both hands on her waist in a firm grip, probably letting some bruises there, and slowly pushed her a little, making friction on her sensitive spot.

"Can I...?" Y/N whispered, timid.

Shauna removed her hair from her face and nodded, after all she incite to do it. "You can ride my abs." She said in a deep voice, hearing the strong breathing falling from her lover's lips.

And she did it, up and down, at first with slow movements. It will become faster soon, Shauna is delighted by the sight in front of her. She clenched her abs when noticed Y/N was coming, with her head back and both hands on Shauna's sides. Y/N gave a final thrust, screaming for pleasure and falling on top of her, exhausted.

Shauna caressed her back tenderly, feeling a warm liquid fell on her stomach. She swallowed hard, she felt a little frustrated sexually talking. Shauna thought that watching Y/N had her pleasure, she didn't need it now, but... She is wrong. She let Y/N recover her breath, playing with her hair without the necessity to use words.

Y/N hummed contents, peppering kisses on her naked shoulder until her neck, biting gently there, gaining a low moan from Shauna. Her nails scratched Y/N's thigh, a loud hiss slipped from their mouths. Shauna observed when Y/N slowly started to go down, she paid attention to her chest, but not staying too much time there, preferring to bite her stomach a few times.

"I'm not shave..." Shauna said panting, a little embarrassed. Y/N raised her head frowning, seeing how Shauna closed her eyes, her cheeks turning more red.

"I don't care, Shippy." Y/N snorted innocent. It made Shauna open her eyes, seeing a brief frown on Y/N's eyebrows. "And I think if you shave now, you would cut yourself." She said looking down, the face she put on made Shauna relax and chuckle.

Y/N bit her lip and looked at Shauna, asking with her eyes. The ginger nods, her breathing stuck on her throat, but not keeping her eyes away from her. Y/N give her some wet mouthed kisses on her thigh, getting closer. Shauna opened her legs more to let Y/N put herself between knees, and her mouth immediately met her center, giving a long lick. Shauna let out a moan, biting her lip and scratching the pillow next to her. She can feel Y/N's nails on her thighs, her tongue getting deep inside her and recollecting the wetness she had from seeing Y/N cum two times.

A hand squeezed her chest, hard. If the moment doesn't require her to think, she would ask how in hell Y/N is doing it so well. Shauna is close, she is worked up and her orgasm is approaching, with hand on Y/N's head, pressing her face on the exact part where she wants and with the room filling her moans, Shauna released on her mouth with a guttural moan, her legs shaking.

With half open eyes and an irregular breathing, Shauna saw Y/N's chin covered by her cum, her hair mess and sweat covering her body. She raised half of her body and grabbed her face between her hands, kissing hard.

"SHAUNA, Y/N! ARE YOU TWO HERE?" Jackie interrupted them. They shared a panicked look and soon they started to put on their clothes. For their luck Jackie was downstairs, at least they could be dissimulate, only if the blonde didn't get upstairs and entered there, then they screwed up.

"Go to the bathroom!" Shauna said in a low voice, putting on her big shirt. "I'm going to distract her. Get down for around 5 minutes." She explains, putting her hair in a messy bun.

Y/N nods, disappearing on say place.

Shauna stepped down and saw her friends there, embarrassed she waved them with a hand. "Hey, Y/N is in the bathroom." She cleared her throat, avoiding Jackie's hazel eyes and going to the kitchen for water, because she really needed it.

Jackie hummed, following her. "We were worried. I thought you two would come."

"Y/N didn't like you don't wake us up and we went to the town." She explains, shrugging and giving her an apologetic lipped smile.

"I told you..." Van walked next to Jackie and sang, letting some things on top of the countertop.

"Y/N! ARE YOU MAD AT ME?" Another person would wait to ask this face to face, but it's Jackie and she went to the top of the staircase, looking up to an empty hall.

"NOT ANYMORE!" Another scream was heard, Shauna shaking her head with a smirk while sip from the cup.

"DO YOU WANT TO COME TO THE MOVIES WITH ME AND I COMPENSATE YOU?" Jackie asked hopefully, even if her told her that she wasn't mad at her.

Y/N approaches her vision, she took a shower and now has a lilac top belonging to Shauna with a black shorts, a small smile resting on her lips. "Okay. I missed our dates." She can't resist and hugs Jackie.

"She is so weak. We need to make her stronger." Van commented with a frown, looking at them.

Shauna snorted. "Which one?"

•••

Summer passed faster, and Shauna knew it.

With dreamy eyes and a silly smile, she recounted every date she had with Y/N these past two months, her favourite one was when she asked Y/N to be her girlfriend and she said no because Y/N wanted to ask her to be her girlfriend. After discussing it for a few minutes, Shauna gave up the moment Y/N gave her puppy eyes.

She sneaked every night to Y/N's house, going to sleep together and fearing she couldn't do it the moment they couldn't hold each other when they came back to their respective colleges. Many hidden kisses, desire to do what they did that week in her friend's house, but they gave up every time they tried, and something or someone interrupted them, so they happily did other things.

Like talk. They can talk for hours. It's something that Shauna adored about their night laying on the bed, talking about anything in particular or knowing Y/N unknown's side. She comprehends her better, and mentally grateful for choosing her to share her secrets, her dream passion or just to not run away from her with her weird persona.

About their friends, well... They agreed to not tell them anything. Y/N commented at Shauna about telling them their relationship at the end of the summer, only if she wants too. Shauna nodded, unsure. She wishes that she was more like Y/N in that aspect, not fearing what people could say, and less with her friends, the ginger knew that they can't say anything bad. But they are in 1997, and until this date, Shauna saw hate about it.

"What are you thinking about?" Y/N interrupted her thoughts, balancing their hands while they walked to Shauna's car. They went to the woods to walk, enjoying some time alone. The night arrived and the hour to the meeting with their friends was approaching. Because they would tell them about their relationship.

"About... How beautiful you are." Shauna commented, holding her laugh when Y/N shoved her playful.

The nights in Wiskayok by this time of the year usually are breezy, and Shauna wears one of her famous flannel on, Y/N was wearing one of hers too because she was stubborn to not grab any jackets and luckily Shauna had one in her car.

The car approached their vision, Shauna wrapped an arm around Y/N's shoulders and gently opened the copilot door, gaining a kiss on her cheek the moment she sat down on her seat.

"We need to pick up Jackie." Y/N commented, searching for some songs she likes on the radio.

"Believe me, I know." Shauna rolled her eyes, used to her friend's princess side.

The ride to Jackie's home was filled with Y/N humming the song playing on the radio, Shauna tapped the wheel to the beat of the song, humming quietly too. She honked a few times when they arrived, praying that Jackie doesn't take too long.

Shauna put a hand on Y/N's knee, caressing the exposed skin with her thumb. Her brown eyes softened seeing her profile, her mind calming down the spiral that usually she is in.

"You sure about this?" The ginger, less now, but still glowing, asked. Y/N put a hand on hers and nod with a smile.

"Yeah. I want to kiss you in front of my friends. Our friends." Y/N whispered, playing with her fingers.

Shauna can't hold the smile anymore. "And I want to kiss you every hour... Is this sane?" She joked, leaning to kiss her cheek.

Y/N shakes her head, giggling.

Shauna removed her hand when she heard a door opening. She looked behind and saw Jackie Taylor get in, shivering a little and she had a jacket on.

"Put on the calefaction, Shauna." Jackie said, closing the door.

"Hello to you too, and not. I'm not going to put it. It's not that cold." Shauna said, starting the car. She heard how Jackie let out a gasp.

"Open the right seat, there is a blanket." Y/N commented before they could get entangled by another silly discussion.

Jackie says loudly how much she loves her, making Y/N laugh and Shauna rolled her eyes. They are approaching Lottie's house, the last reunion until Thanksgiving. They decided to spend their time together in a quiet place, and since Lottie's parents are out the major part of the time, she offered to hold the little party.

"The last ones!" Van opened the front door, putting them to a side to let them pass in. Y/N is the first one to hug the redhead, from the whole gang, Van and Y/N had a special bond.

Y/N let Shauna, Jackie and Van behind and she adventure into the big living room, usually quiet and empty, now filled with laughter and life.

"There you are!" Lottie saw her and stood up with a happy smile, engulfing Y/N in a hug. "I'm gonna miss you a lot." She whispered when they separated.

"I hope you miss us a lot too..." Natalie commented behind her, a teasing smirk on her plump lips. Then, she envelopes Y/N in a hug.

Lottie rolled her eyes. "Don't get jealous, Scatorccio. I will miss you too, less than the rest but still I'm going to miss you." Her dark eyes lit with mischief, taking her red cup to her mouth.

Before Nat could reply back, Taissa interrupted them by pushing the blue eyed girl to a side and taking her turn to hug Y/N. Shauna and Jackie approached there and greeted them with hugs too.

They sit down next to each other, recounting old anecdotes or telling the new ones. Shauna was quiet, hearing them and sipping from her red cup while her eyes travelled to the storyteller. Y/N nudges her side, giving her a silly face when she turns to look at her.

"You are an idiot." Shauna leaned on her ear and whispered with a loving smile.

Y/N makes an offended face, putting a hand on her chest. Shauna rolls her eyes, but her smile remains.

"I will remind you later when you want to kiss me..." She whispered in her ear, licking her lips when she separated.

Her brown eyes opened, big and deep. Without noticing she gave her puppy eyes, not liking the idea of not kissing her. Y/N couldn't resist her eyes and without thinking too much, she grabbed her chin and pecked her lips.

Shauna froze on her seat, the place getting quiet and feeling all eyes on them. She cleared her throat, her surprise eyes going to normal but refusing to look at them. Y/N frowned when she paid attention to them, at first confused but soon realising what she did.

"Oh my god! Shit, I'm sorry Shippy." Y/N apologised with her girlfriend.

"Shippy? She hates that. This is serious." Van was the first to comment.

Shauna looks at her redhead friend, frowning. "She is the only one who can call like that." She warned them.

Y/N saw their unreadable expressions and decided to clarify. "We are in a relationship." She told them.

"Are you corrupting her!?" Jackie exclaimed, a shock expression plastered on her face.

"She's not! And you started corrupting me." Y/N said. "We like each other and decided to date. We wanted to tell you tonight, in a different manner... I hope it's okay with you guys." She said softly, playing with her fingers.

"Me and Taissa are in a relationship." Van said casually, Taissa nodded next to them.

"We are too..." Lottie comments, giving a soft look to the blonde.

Shauna opened her mouth, surprised and Y/N painted a small smile. "So, all of us like women? We are cool then." Jackie says, all looks on her now. "What? I appreciate women too." She said shrugging, taking her red cup to her lips.

"We knew that. We thought in high school that you and Shauna were dating. When we found that you didn't then we assumed during college maybe you get together." Natalie explained in an obvious tone.

"I agree." Y/N says, receiving an incredulous look from her girlfriend. "You look cute together if that helps."

"She corrupted me." Shauna said, looking at all of them. Y/N calls her name in a whine, while their friends laugh.

The rest of the night they enjoyed their time together, explaining the new unknown sides and all of them gave a talk to Shauna.

[aquaburst3]

Okay, since I haven't seen many posts up yet about this, not that I blame anyone since others are probably at school and work rn, I want make a post summarizing what happened so far in the latest event on the JP server.

Disclaimers:

All of this info came from LuluBelle over on my Discord server, so all the credit for gathering this up goes to them.

Also, I don't know how to speak or read Japanese nor do I have the JP version of the app, making me unable to verify this. Take this all with a huge mountain of salt.

Like I said in my other post, I'm calling him Honest Fellow, since that sounds less awkward and I think it'll be localized to that anyway.

JP Event Spoilers Below

The arc starts with Honest Fellow and Giddel selling the themepark to some faceless NPCs. After some convincing, they enter the park. Honest Fellow evil laughs.

We cut to a basketball game between RSA and NRC. NRC lose yet again. NRC fight amongst themselves, and the teachers break it up.

After the game, Floyd, Ace, Yuu and Grim, wallowing in their frustration at NRC's loss to RSA, decided to go Craneport to get some snacks. There they find Jade and Jack on the way.Jack was there to get some new threads while Jade was there by sheer coincidence.

Kalim and Ortho arrive. They were in a bookstore, because Kalim was searching for books concerning magic potions, since he's struggling with those and Sam's shop was closed. (I have no idea why Jamil wasn't there either, because him leaving Kalim unattended seems kinda ooc.)

Honest Fellow along with his brother swoop in, making their sales pitch. Grim wonders about what Playful Land is exactly. Ace explains that it's a mysterious amusement park that nobody knows where it is. Honest Fellow says that's correct.

Honest Fellow gives the group tickets to the park. When Kalim says they'll go the next weekend, Honest Fellow chimes in, saying, "Oh, no, no! You can only use it until tomorrow!" They both fuck off into the night.

When the group gets back, they tell Riddle and Jamil about the tickets. They're both like, "Hell no!" Riddle shoots it down because skipping classes is unforgivable. (Ace was originally gonna invite Deuce, but he tattled on him to Riddle, since he found the whole thing suspicious. Honestly, good on him.) Jamil finds it suspicious and puts his foot down, telling Kalim that he forbids him from ever going.

Jack tells Leona, who is all like, "Nah, this is kinda fishy." Jack decides that he has to go because he promised Honest Fellow he would, and he doesn't want to break it.

Floyd tells Azul. He says, "Nope, I'm not coming. It's sus, and I don't wanna owe anybody anything!" They tweels laugh, saying that they want to check it out BECAUSE it's shady.

Ortho tells his brother. He shoots it down, since he doesn't like crowds. Ortho then confides in Vil thanks to them being in the same club.

Early the morning, before the sun rises, the group gathers to sneak to the harbour in town. Kalim managed to get the rest of the Light Music Club to come along, because they saw just how sad Kalim seemed and decided to tag along to comfort him. Vil was convinced to come along by Ortho. One, he wants to see what's the big deal about this park. Two, he's also suspicious, and, as a dorm leader, he wants to oversee all of his juniors and make sure they're all okay. Trey followed after Ace because Deuce asked him for his help and had the feeling that Ace would be stubborn enough to rebel and sneak out even though Riddle said no. Leona followed after Jack because he felt like he had to be the responsible one for once and was genuinely concerned about Jack's well being.

Honest Fellow arrives. He is just so dramatic. Half of them go, "Fucking really? Why did any of our juniors trust this guy? He's as sus as a FNAF animatronic!" (Not in those words, obliviously, but along that same idea.)

Honest Fellow shows them around the park. Which looks like this...

The park is more like those travelling summer fairs where it goes from town to town instead of staying in one place like Universal Studios, Knotts Berry Farm or any of the Disney Parks. The boys can kick back and indulge in their darkest desires.

The third years still feel that this whole thing is kinda sus. Since Grim and some of the others head straight to the entry gate, they reluctantly go along with it to watch over their juniors. Grim face plants into the gate, because he didn't show a ticket. Ace shows his ticket. Ace, Grim and Yuu's clothes get magically altered to resemble the ones on the card. The same thing happened to everyone else.

After everyone's gotten inside the amusement park, we have a foreboding speech from Honest Fellow and Giddel about how the young generation are easily skeptical, but can still be fooled by the promises of a fun play park. Honest Fellow mentions how he and Giddel should accommodate their visitors… for it will be the "last'' fun memory that they'd have. Cue End of Part 1.

Some other minor side things...

It's confirmed. Honest Fellow and Giddel are brothers.

Honest Fellow is a mage, but is less magically inclined compared to the NRC boys. Giddel is a non-mage.

Lulu, aka the same person from my Discord server, suspects the themepark itself might be a magic tool of some kind. Considering how it operated in the movie and novel along with fan theories about them, I'm inclined to believe them.

We also finally got a description of what Yuu is actually wearing during this event. (Honestly, it's about fucking time. Because one gripe I always had with these events is that we never get even a small description of what Yuu is wearing, which makes it harder to imagine what's going on in my head.) Basically, they are wearing the same style jacket as Leona, but with the same colours as Lilia's costume. Do with that information as you will Malleus/Yuu shippers.

Honest Fellow has a Honest John pendant on his hat.

More of a personal gripe, but I'm not sure what to make of Honest Fellow as a character yet. Right now, he seems like the mastermind behind this whole operation, but that doesn't make sense. In the movie, Honest John wasn't on board with the Pleasure Island shit, and only went along with it thanks to the Coachman threatening him and Gideon's lives. Wouldn't it be far more fitting for him to be a lacky of another villain and being forced to go along with it out of fear of having the same thing happen to him and his brother? And if that was the case, that would also better align him thematically with Ortho, who's brother is the same way towards him. But I'm reserving my judgements on his character until the event is over.

Playful Land gives me major Joy Joy Land vibes.

I find the idea of Leona, Trey and Vil going there, because they are worried about their juniors adorable. They are really tapping into their big brother instincts, even if I doubt Vil and Leona would ever admit it out loud.

Though, one plot hole with this whole thing is why didn't Jamil, Trey and Deuce rip up the tickets if they were that concerned about the others going to the park? Granted, the tickets could be enchanted so that they're impossible to destroy, but I never heard if that's the case yet. Idk, it's a nitpick, but it's still something that annoys me a bit as a writer myself.

[lloydfrontera]

weird i thought lloyd would be in textbooks for generations to the point students will curse his name for making their tests difficult/it's this guy again types of questions but nope he just vanished from history and only a handful knows him

speaking of does his summons, skeleton corps and yongyong still exists and with him?

weird i thought lloyd would be in textbooks for generations to the point students will curse his name for making their tests difficult/it's this guy again types of questions but nope he just vanished from history and only a handful knows him

i mean. do you remember the guy who revolutionized the history of civil engineering and architecture in your country?? the guy who changed the history of building construction and sewer systems a couple centuries ago??

like. personally i am not very informed about that topic cause it's not part of my daily life! i imagine it's different for, y'know, people who have to study the topic and will make a career out of it.

for all we know lloyd is still very known but just to the people the system told him he would be remembered by: engineering and architecture students and teachers.

[Hell's Top Talent] [Title Level: Hero's Journey] Okay, it's time to study the railway of the past. Open your History of Modern Civil Engineering Book to page 359. Yes. That's the famous Pantara Railway, which I'm sure every one of you knows. Student in the front row. Could you briefly walk us through how this railroad came to be? Excellent. That's correct. The Pantara Railway, just like what the student said, is a masterpiece built by Lloyd Frontera, who received an order from the Magentano House. Hahaha. Are you all bored? It's Lloyd Frontera again. Look at this section, and you'll find Lloyd Frontera. Move on to the next part and you still find him. I, too, am sick of him. Had it not been for him, we would only have one eight of what we will study this summer. But what else can we do? That son of a gun set the groundwork for the civil engineering of our empire. So, it would be unfair if we were the only ones to suffer, no? Let's hit the book. Come now. Let's study harder, create new theories and make it harder for the students who'll come after you all. All right, so the Pantara Railroad introduced the switchback system for the first time in the world...

again. does this sound like something the every day person would be studying?? yes, lloyd did leave a very big mark in history, one that will last for centuries, but it doesn't mean literally everyone will know about him. just... the people who are most involved in the field he worked in.

who's to say there aren't a bunch of students in the background of rakiel's shenanigans, cursing lloyd's name or making little altars in the back of their classrooms every time a test comes and they have to answer insanely complicated questions that only exist because lloyd did a bunch of stuff 300 hundred years earlier??

we just don't get to see it because it wasn't relevant to rakiel's journey </3

also. the sequel is mostly from rakiel's perspective. and rakiel is busy. he hasn't traveled to a lot of places where lloyd went. his field of work is extremely separated from lloyd's. he has no reason to really think about lloyd and yet he does! several times! he hasn't been forgotten he's just not relevant to rakiel's daily life.

just because you're famous in one field doesn't mean everyone will know of you! just to the people invested in that field and maybe a couple adjacent ones!

speaking of does his summons, skeleton corps and yongyong still exists and with him?

the summons yes! lloyd himself confirms that he has ppodong and the rest of the gang with him in heaven. i don't remember if he has mentioned the skeleton corps or yongyong yet, but lexi is working with javier so?? it's unclear.

[austennerdita2533]

Hi friend-miss you!!

Really random but do you have any recs for just like fluffy happy fun books (or Klaroline fics). Feeling very sad (I’m fine I just finally moved and my mom came over to help me but she flew out today) so just need some joy but for some reason none of my tbr is screaming joy right now 😅 probably because most of the books on my “really want to read” tbr are angsty 😂 so just looking for some other options!

-ACOTAR anon

Hello there, lovely! I miss you, too! Between working like a maniac and traveling a lot this summer, I have been the world's worst correspondent. My inbox still is overflowing with unanswered messages from months ago because I. am. awful. haha. 😬😇

I'm so sorry to hear you're feeling sad, though. :/ That's completely normal after a big move when you're away from everything and everyone that's familiar to you. It'll take some time to adjust, but I know it'll end up being a great experience for you and you'll blossom in all sorts of ways. 💖 That said, in the meantime, if I can help take the edge off your sadness with some fluffy book and fic recs then I absolutely will!

Book recs:

-When in Rome and Practice Makes Perfect by Sarah Adams (These are the two I've read from her so far and they're in the same series. So cute! Honestly, I feel like you could pick up anything from her and it'd be adorable.)

-Funny Story by Emily Henry (Don't know if you've read this one yet but I feel like it's one of the wittiest of all her books. And Miles is a golden retriever boyfriend)

-Divine Rivals and Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross (It's a fantasy series that's set during a war between gods BUT the main characters fall in love over letters they write using a magical typwriter. It's cute, I think you'd like it.)

-The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center (I got an ARC of this a couple months ago and I absolutely FLEW through it. She writes a lot of cute romcoms) You could also check out The Bodyguard and Hello Stranger by her, too.

-Next-Door Nemesis by Alexa Martin (This one's fun because the main pairing have a history but then they decide to run against each other to be HOA president.)

-Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries and Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett (Another fantasy series, but it's more of a cozy fantasy. Emily and Wendell have THE best banter)

-Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating by Christina Lauren (I read this years ago, but I remember giggling and kicking my feet.)

-A Lot Like Adiós by Alexis Daria (Friends to lovers, fake dating, and second chance romance)

-I also currently have Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez and This Summer Will be Different by Carley Fortune sitting on my bedside table. Haven't read them yet but the summaries sounded the right combo of fluffy and summery to me

Fics Recs:

-Tbh, I haven't read any Klaroline fic in a while and I haven't bookmarked as many as I thought I did on AO3. (SHORTSIGHTED OF ME, AHHHH.) Let me have a think on this and I'll get back to you. Or, if anyone in the KC fandom sees this post and wants to drop a rec or ten in the comments then I'd be grateful.

Anyway, I hope a few things from this list will help cheer you up! *all the hugs*

[blysse-and-blunder]

in lieu of packing

11pm, saturday, july 15, 2023

the things i could be doing right now could fill multiple volumes, but i listened to a podcast today about academic (im)perfectionism and am deciding i don't need to feel guilty. this summer's Big European Travel starts tomorrow and I! am! nervois! but i've done some smaller trips recently which helped me work up to this in a way. further media and life musings below the cut.

reading i had a few weeks there where my recreational reading was... a little bleak, in that i was reading things that felt dated and/or formulaic and/or just put me straight to sleep, thereby meaning that i took much longer than i normally like to finish anything-- this was enlivened with two excellent new instalments from two different series i love, anne leckie's translation state and samantha shannon's a day of fallen night.

very very fun now thinking of these back to back. two books were so engrossing, built (and built on) such rich worlds, such good command of the vibes/atmosphere/tone they were going for, but so different! to sound like a book reviewer for a moment, leckie's prose is sort of lean where shannon's is lush, something like that. there's a joke in here based on the meme that goes 'sci-fi is where x, fantasy is where y' but i'm too tired to work it out myself. both of these books say-- so there are incomprehensible beings in your world which may wish to eat and/or destroy you, and some people have found ways to work or live with them, but it is very weird and alien to your way of life. day of fallen night feels more like a climate metaphor, and there is plenty that felt pulled straight from the psyche of the years 2020-2023. both do fun/interesting things with gender and relationships, and both made me want to go re-read their respective predecessors to heighten the feeling of connection and resonance with those other works.

watching mostly dimension 20-- i introduced @yogurtforever to fantasy high last week, and I myself have been working my way through the toy island arc of neverafter-- but here is the place to mention watching netflix's new documentary about WHAM!, of all things, with @yogurtforever and @thehibernatinglentil last weekend.

not being a documentary hound, i never would have watched this without friends, but it was genuinely quite fun! i didn't know a ton about wham! or george michael, which i now realize is a shame because there's a lot to know. making up for it by having the lyrics to their first hit single, the inimitable 'wham rap', stuck in my head for the next 200 years.

listening due in no small part to the wham! doc (and an mama mia 2 rewatch the week before that), i put on a lot of throwback music this week. it ended up being more 70s than 80s, and that got me thinking about how strongly my parents' music taste influenced mine. there are so many good artists from ~back then~ who i have found out about later, because we just didn't listen to them at home? and of the vinyl i remember finding in the basement, you know, it wasn't bowie, it wasn't fleetwood mac, it wasn't springsteen (it was james taylor and paul simon and probably joni mitchell). luckily, summer camp taught me all the lyrics to a bunch of other oldies, and we did listen to the radio oldies station quite a lot, so my education wasn't entirely deficient. i bring this week the don maclean song 'vincent', which i will be thinking a lot about for one reason and another this week.

playing i have, at long, long last, completed my stardew community center. it was a little anticlimactic, after all the travail that went into it, but i'm so pleased. it only took like two actual human real life years! the last thing i needed was a rabbit's foot, and now at last i feel like i can move to the next tier of game play. i remain unmarried, fighting for my life in skull cavern, but now with two small bunnies to love.

making trying to figure out how to eat most of the food i have in the fridge, how to use up things and make the most of what i have and not leave anything to spoil for the next little while, so i haven't really been cooking big projects. i've been 'making' appointments, got my eyes checked, had coffee with two different profs and chatted with a former student about her med school applications, and that's about it!

working on conference paper, which is both a slideshow (graphic design is my passion, this part is mostly fine) and a draft of what might turn into usable words for the chapter i'm working on. naturally i have built it up into the Biggest Scariest Most Important task, and so am avoiding it and finding it miserable to work on. and i still have time! i had wanted to not work on it on the plane, during my travel week, etc., but there is actually time. there's time. and i keep having small breakthroughs, after 2-5 hours of dicking around, which allow me to believe that there is an end in sight. other things to be worked on, for when i have some 'free' 'time'-- newsletter draft that's so very overdue, multiple students asking for detailed essay feedback and grade breakdowns, emails from students asking for other things, recommendation letter, the next chapter that i'm meant to be finishing this summer. luckily, it's a long plane ride.

[notesoncrocs]

i should be doing work

i'm supposed to be doing work but i logged on here and tried to catch up with everyone's posts (ana's slides are so cute ahhh).

i miss this summer and yall a lot. i know missing it won't change anything but i still do. i've been saying this year is my era of peace and quiet -- i guess that's true. here's what i've been up to:

been going to the gym every morning with ana, making my room look nice, watching succession, having disappointing frat party experiences, trying to stay on top of work. there's a harvard class i'm taking that i really like, a creative writing workshop on the art of the short story. i like that this class is taught a lot better than that one time i took a fiction workshop at mit. we read adela's house by mariana enriquez, a story about a haunted house, and the prompt for that week was to use physical space and the interaction with that space to write a story. this week, we're reading bloodchild by octavia butler (which is literally an alien mpreg story) and the prompt is to write a story about the physical body. i'm writing some crazy stuff.

i like getting back into writing. it used to be a source of stress for me for a lot of very dramatic reasons, and i pretty much gave up on it after that mit fiction workshop. but i was reading this is how you lose the time war this summer (lesbian time travel story where they send each other really poetic letters, bought it with ana at trident in may) and i started thinking about writing more as sending letters to someone across space and time, which i thought was a nice way to think about it. summer was good but there was always an undercurrent of anxiety -- this happiness is temporary, my memory is imperfect and will forget these moments, i will leave these countries and these people and it won't ever be the same. thoughts like that. but there was a line in that book, something about how poetry ossifies, like wood from a tree, how it uses the words in a language (which are like a grimy deck of cards, really) to preserve this beating, writhing tissue, this ephemeral moment, into something strong, solid, and a little bit lifeless. but solid enough to package up and send to you, or to me in the future, or someone. so it's a good thing to write, to work against time, even if it's just to say things to myself that i can't say to anyone else.

anyway. all this to say that i like taking a class that teaches me how to make things up. i'm also taking paloma's class, which is just me being delusional about my spanish level (mexico did help a lot though). i'm also taking jazz composing (my next hobby mayhaps, watch out mit festival jazz ensemble!), 9.66 (computational cog sci), and computer graphics with ana (i'm supposed to be doing pset 0 rn but it looks so atrocious). when i'm not thinking about classes, i'm thinking about how i need to apply for internships next summer and need to relearn 6.006. when i'm not doing either, i guess i'm doing things like writing this, which is really just me procrastinating by feeling melancholic (tm).

like, maybe i should meet more people, or something? but the thought makes me so exhausted and disappointed already. but yeah, these are the things i've been thinking about. hope yall are doing good!

[podraje]

It's my 26th birthday today 🥹 bye, bye nice paycheck, hello paying taxes 😔

Since my birthday used to be a very depressing day for me ever since I turned 20, and it's not any more (the growth, hello?), I want to make a post summarizing the 25th year of my life.

Positive things that happened in my 25th year of life:

I got a stable job. A nice one. Close to what I studied in Uni, so I might say, that I'm almost working in my profession. But most importantly the workplace is nice, the people are very human, the paycheck is (or at least was, gonna see if I get equalization [?]) pretty good.

Reffering to getting that job - I've learnt so much this year! Also, I had the opportunity to travel to some places I've never been to before. Very nice.

I've read 26 (or 27?) books since last November. That's a nice upgrade, since I used to only read, like 10 books a year.

I didn't give up on writing, even tho I had a very hard time this year. I figured out some stuff around structure. I totally scrapped the 3rd chapter, since I won't be doing this person pov (and for the longest time I thought I would). I re-wrote the entire 1st and 2nd chapter.

I got excited about my story again! Or I think I did.

I got my boyfriend to go on a trip with me! Juhu. (He very much likes to spend time at home, and I really want to see stuff around the world. Don't get me wrong, I love being cozy at home, and I'm not some sort of big traveler, but there are some places that I want to see, and some experiences that I want to have. Also, until the end of last year, we both were struggling with jobs = with money, and weren't able to do much of traveling or doing cool things. So the thing I'm most proud of this year, is that we both got decent jobs, with normal contracts of employment! 💚He recently had his 1st year anniversary. I have yet to get to that point, as for today I have been working at my job for 9 months).

What I want to do / accomplish in my 26th year of life:

• I want to buy a car 🚗 and have more summer trips (or any, tbh) around the area.

- By next November, I want to be at least close to finishing up my first draft (God help me, cause I cannot see this insecure, lazy and full of imposter syndrome ass, doing it without some divine help).

- I wanna keep my job 👍🏻(no really, we are having a tough time [or at least I am] and I'm constantly anxious and scared. I don't want to get fired. My anxiety is so high, last time I felt this bad and stressed was 2021. We are planning an event rn, and I've never done it before and things are not going as smoothly, as I thought they would. So I'm pissing myself. After the event is done, it'll be alright again).

• Travel to one of the places from my list with my bf. We really didn't get a chance to travel together in those years we've been together. I think it's time (granted we both are in stable financial situation).

• Read some more. And read books that make me feel smarter.

And I think that's it.

[a-multilingual-dream]

Hello!

My name is Juliet. I recently finished my masters degree in sociolinguistics, and then moved to France to work for a travel company. I used my first three months of living in this new country and working full time to get settled in, but now I'm ready to get back to my language studies!

And what better place to get motivation than here ;)

Let me introduce the languages that i speak / want to speak:

🇩🇪 German 🇩🇪 (Native)

This is my mother tongue and i actually have a certificate to teach German as a foreign language - i love teaching it, so if anyone needs help, don't hesitate to contact me.

🇺🇲 English 🇺🇲 (C1 / C2)

I started learning English at 12 years old in high school, and later taught myself by reading English books and watching English tv shows. My master program was mostly in English and i actually wrote my thesis in English, so I'm pretty comfortable with the language.

🇨🇵 French 🇨🇵 (C1)

Oh French - my love and my enemy. I grew up next to the French border and starting learning it in 5th grade. I proceeded to do 2 student exchanges in France, spent a year as an au pair in Paris, later did my Erasmus semester in Paris and recently moved back to France. I love France, i love French - and the pressure is high to speak it fluently. This actually makes me pretty self-conscious when speaking it, which in turn makes me worse at it. By moving to France, i hope to really improve my language skills, especially my vocabulary.

🇮🇹 Italian 🇮🇹 (B1)

Italian is my favorite language in the world, and Italy is my favorite country in the world. I just love everything about it, which is why I decided to learn Italian a few years ago. I have been studying it on and off for about 4 years, a mix of beginner classes at my university and self study. After finishing my masters this spring, i spent the summer traveling through Italy and ended the trip with a 2 week language course in Torino, and it was absolutely amazing! I'm excited to keep learning and to hopefully go back to Italy many times :)

🇯🇵 Japanese 🇯🇵 (beginner)

I've been wanting to study Japanese for sooo long, i think it's been 5 years since i bought my first Japanese language book. 5 years later, do i speak any Japanese? Nope. I can read and write hiragana and katakana, quite a few kanji, and i know basic sentence structure. But that's it. I think it's soo interesting to learn all about a language that's completely different from all the languages i know, but that also makes it challenging to learn it all by myself. I had planned and booked a 6-week language course in Tokyo in the summer of 2020, and was soo excited that i cried when I booked it. Well, I cried even more when the whole trip got cancelled bc of COVID... After that i didn't really get back into studying it, although I'm still as interested in it as ever. So I've been thinking about trying out italki this year... I will try to make a decision about how to go forward with my Japanese study during January.

~Other~

If i had the time to study more languages (which at the moment i absolutely do not, but life is long) i would be interested in Chinese and Korean. After getting to know the basics of Japanese i find it really fascinating to learn a whole new writing system and a completely different grammar, and although I've had absolutely no connection to Asia so far in my life, i absolutely want to travel there and learn more about its numerous languages (which i know aren't just Japanese, Chinese and Korean 😉). It's just like there's a whole new world to explore there!

So that was my (not so short) introduction. I'll be looking for langblrs that post more or less about the languages I'm learning, so if anyone who studies any of my languages sees this post, don't hesitate to leave a like and I'll have a look at your account!

To be continued...

[bardic-tales]

Hello. I hope everyone is well! I want to thank everyone for reading my work and entertaining me with theirs. It was a pleasure to read everything I was tagged in this year.

In the summer, I decided to join writeblr. This was to give myself a push to focus on my WIPS and to simply have fun. I made some friends in Writeblr, but I disappeared in November.

I also created a Discord that celebrates all types of creatives. I will announce this sometime next year. It has channels for pomodoro and sprints, as well as writing prompts, qotds, etc. I'm excited to share it with everyone when it is ready.

Flight of the Dragon added 14 new characters to the Planes of Existence Universe. This is also the novel that fleshes out my world's dragons.

A new god and goddess joined the pantheon -- Nyxa and Noxxus. Noxxus oversees boundaries, funerals, mummification, mysteries, poisons, precious metals, travel, and wealth. While his wife oversees, darkness, decay, famine, ghosts, magic, night, nightmares, sleep, and winter. Nyxa also is called the Queen of the Death Plane, as she oversees it

The Wraith and the Shadow Blades worship Nyxa and Noxxos, while their leader worships Vittore.

I decided to convert an old WIP I was working on about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and set it in my Planes of Existence universe. At the time, this was my main WIP.

Flight of the Dragon always featured the male protagonist as a draconic being. Before it was set upon Cirel, Brennan was King Arthur. The story was almost the same, but there was a glaring difference: the child of prophecy introduction.

Shortly after, I decided to work on Cold as Ice. This has been my passion project since 2009ish. In 2021, I lost most of the data in a glitch. Needless to say, this killed my drive to work on anything related to the Planes of Existence. I would have to rebuild it from the ground up.

I think the biggest change this year was I finally named my planet. The world is called Cirel and resides in the Life Plane. It features two moons: Andrea and Amés. These are named after the chief god and goddess.

The magic system was overhauled once more. I never really gave a specific name to the magic system. This year I decided on calling it Manipulation.

I created four categories for each of the magick types: body manipulation, elemental manipulation, mind maniplatuion, and magic associated with the children of prophecy. This was further broken down into specific types of manipulation.

For example: for body manipulation, they can manipulate air, earth, and ven while someone who is versed in body manipulation could manipulate blood, bone, eye, hair, as well as heal themselves and each other.

During this time period, I made many people who I admire: @starryeyes2000 @blind-the-winds, @perasperaadastrawriting, @arrthurpendragon, @writingpotato07and @athena-anna-rose, to name a few. Their works and support leave me in awe.

This is difficult for me as I tend to shy away from interactions, as I've been diagnosis with AvPD. I don't know what this will mean for my writing career, but I'll try my best.

There were not many new characters that I introduced during this time, but that did not mean I wasn't working on them behind the scenes.

I fleshed out all the characters of Pale Fire, mainly those in the secret society that is found in that book. One of the characters I named Rosette, an homage to one of the first OCs I've ever created.

November came around, and I decided to work on NaNoWri. This work created the Dullahan named Kian. Heart of the Horseman was based upon a WIP idea I had a year and a half ago. He only had a placename until then.

I decided to see if I could salvage a WIP, Heart of the Horseman, for NaNoWri. HotH was to take place during the 18th century and in Ireland.

HotH always featured Donn, a Celtic proto-god of Death who would serve as an antagonist. It was during this time that I decided Donn would be gender-fluid.

cw: death

This wasn't meant to be. At the end of October, I had a sudden death in the family. She was the only fatality in the car accident. She was only a year older than my daughter, a brilliant young woman whose life was snuffed out much too soon.

In the immediate aftermath, I found it difficult to focus on this Tumblr, much less writing. It was hard to write about death. I don't think I will ever be comfortable writing about it again.

cw: illness

In the middle of November, I had to take a blood test for my doctor. I have high blood pressure and high cholesterol, so I am on medication to lessen my symptoms.

The results didn't come back as normal. I have an elevated liver enzymes count, as well as my AC-1 came back as horrible as well. I'm 2 points away from Diabetes. I'm prediabetic.

After an aggressive lifestyle change -- plant-based diet, as well as moderate exercise-- I finally feel well again. Well enough to write, at least.

FanFiction

I decided to transfer my fanfiction to this account. As a writer, I want to embrace all forms of writing. This includes both fanfiction and original writing.

I am focusing upon two fandoms: the Elder Scrolls and Star Wars.

During this time, most of my worldbuilding focused on Heart of the Horseman.

In October, I decided to complete a worldbuilding in 30 days worksheet. This included figuring out the magic system that would allow Donn to reanimate Kian, as well as the powers that the Morrigan possessed.

As it was set in Ireland, I wanted the magic to be nature based. I feel like this kept it grounded in reality somewhat.

My upcoming plans is to take a break from writing for the holiday season. I should have announced this at the beginning of the month. I will be ready to be back writing full-time around January 12th.

Why am I taking a break? The ending of 2022 was tragic. While I am ready to move forward, I still need time to process it and spend time with my family. My daughter is on winter break until Jan. 2nd. December 31st will be my 16th wedding anniversary. I'll be spending that day with my husband.

I will focus on Cold as Ice as my main WIP. This is my dark epic fantasy filled with political intrigue. My side projects -- Flight of the Dragon and Pale Fire -- will be worked on when I have some spare time.

Also, I will continue to share my fanfiction. I have some exciting things planned for Darth Noktis, and of course, Mirne Stedhans. I look forward to sharing them with everyone.

My follows can expect worldbuilding posts, drabbles, and standalone work. I will not be sharing many snippets. This is because I don't want to overshare.

Writing is a passion for me, and I'm excited to see what 2023 will bring.

[devitalise]

HI IMO I SEE UR ONLINE + PLANNING 2 SEND THE BOOK ASK THEREFORE I MUST TRY AND BEAT U TO THE PUNCH HI <3 how did your June reads go!! I see you gave ur Bear thoughts already (haven't watched yet but will return 2 it once I do), but other than that, do you have anything else on your Summer Watch radar?

beating you to the punch does make me giggle i'm sorry babe! june was an interesting reading month! answering early as i'm busy the next couple days and i love sitting down to give my full attention to the

june book wrap up

bonjour tristesse & a certain smile by francois sagan

french coquette-like teenage girls in ""relationships"" with older men, hurting the people around them? snooze! just really disinterested in the story here, and not blown away by the writing sorry

(abandoning the music links i did well to last 5 months but. yeah :))

the atlas six by olivie blake

lol. fanfic writers entering the traditional publishing space would be fine if they remembered that they have to develop characters from scratch. so much telling! not half enough showing to pay off. too large of a cast to be introduced at once and some of it felt so juvenile. i think this is YA though so like. quirky indie romance lead, brooding angry guy 1, nonemphathetic guy 2, egomaniac 3, sad distrustful person. the magic system was so boring to me it was grounded in way too much science for me to find it interesting. do readers really need to know the metaphysics behind being able to see time? no! actually i'd have liked to know something about someone that wasn't "x is like this". yeah a lot to say here.

the country life by rachel cusk

i had to return to a control point of a good book. lovely. Cusk can do it all for me and i think the woman escapes from her city life to fumble around in the country is the perfect subject matter for her. full of so much whimsy, a lot of heart and interesting characters! made me laugh and feel and reading this is in similar weather conditions just added to the sense of delirium towards the end of the book

diary of a film by niven govinden

my kind of book! film maestro travels to italy for a film festival, meets a woman and a story that sticks in his head and is overcome with the desire to commit this to screen. related to this so much, that kind of being swept up in an idea and the urge to put your all into it. had a real slowness to it, too, made a lot of the conversations feel so tender and from a real place of love. great read :)

my father's diet by adrian nathan west

so glad i saw this in a bookshop i wouldn't have come across this otherwise! so cool! if music was a book. i listened to air's moon safari that really contributed to the middle america shopping mall in the 80s vibe. sleepy town kind of feeling. anyways, i tore through this book what it had to say on turning to a physical extreme to make sense of feeling inferior internally. fraught, disjointed parental relationships. bodybuilding! i'd recommend in a heartbeat

i'm currently reading the thief's journal by jean genet and have been for about a week or so. after finishing my father's diet and my general uptick in reading i thought i'd increase my reading goal, but this is going to take me a while to read. it's hard but it's worthwhile.

i haven't really considered much summer watching tbh i'm trying to be outside and doing stuff and going places as much as i possibly can this summer and if i'm ever at home long enough to put a show on it's been reality tv lately. just a girl out in the world this summer!

next read will be #3 in the neapolitan quartet because i remember reading the first this time last year and they're such summer books to me. this feels very long! love the opportunity to wax lyrical <3

[brella-boi]

2022 has really been a year of highs and lows for me. I did a lot of life achievement stuff and I really put my foot forward into the Adult World™. I got a car and got into an artist society where I met so many cool people, slowly trying to get out of this anxiety bubble and feel any scrap of freedom I can while living with family. I started a job where I wanted and I really pushed myself to expand my online shop. I've also met my favourite people in real life and travelled very long distances by myself while remaining as organised and painlessly as I could. I also got a couple really nice bug pets that give me a lot of joy. Even though my room is now very much overrun.

But. I've also been out of work half of the year. There has been a drought in contracts and it'll be another two months before my next gig is finalised. I never managed to move out. I also pushed myself a bit too much merch and project wise. I crunched the last 3 months of the year too much, and I immediately got back into crunch to finish off the last tidbits when the new year hit. I was left with very little time to myself or friends or things I could enjoy like games. I'm very tired. And I'm typing this after a very frustrating art day. I've also had quite a few mishaps with friends, and really realising what place in the world I take up in retrospect to their lives. A wake up call if you will. It really made me appreciate the few people who still stick by me and love me for who I am.

This year there's a couple things I want to do. 1- Stop pushing myself so much. Stop with the crunch of new merch and focus on 1 main update. Maybe for summer. Restocks and spare prints in between. If it's something new it must be small and doable. 2- Relax. Give myself time to play the large library of games I wanted to play this year but was too busy and anxious to. 3- Do stuff for myself and have enough time to get to commissions I've been booked for without crunch. 4- Try continue the current comic and finish a collab comic. It's all about that first step. 5- Table at some cons. A big goal to get out there at last.

Overall I think in general I want to take it easy career wise. I want to focus on what I really want to do instead of being highly all over the place but lol im not sure being in one place too long will work me. The least Id like to do is work on my animation skills a bit more. Maybe plan a new short film. Something small. Something quaint. But that's a maybe. I just want to continue bettering my skills.

As for online stuff, I want to thank everyone who have supported me and shop this year. Those who stuck around when I started shifting my focus in art and style. And those new mutuals and friends I made this year here too. Yall are amazing. And I really, really appreciate you all so so much. I hope you all have a wonderful 2023. We're gonna make it work together 🎉

[aitatedition]

AITA for not deciding my wedding around my sister's pregnancy?

I (25F) have a sister (28F), and let's call her Ella.

Ella and I have always been close growing up, despite her being 3 years older. We were best friends, and it was a no-brainer when she asked me to be her MOH at her wedding 2 years ago. She was also supposed to be my MOH at my wedding.

Ella is currently 5 months pregnant. She had a rough first trimester, throwing up 3-4 times a day, always tired. Some days, she couldn't get out of bed, literally. She had also found out early when she was a month into it because her symptoms were so bad.

Her and I live close to each other, and since her husband travels a lot for work, I have stayed with her a lot since I work remotely.

My fiancé and I had originally set the date for July, 2 months ago. However, seeing how sick she was, I, along with my entire family, were getting worried, and so after my fiancé and I discussed it, we decided to reschedule the wedding until after she had passed her first trimester (per her doctor, she was supposed to get better.)

I need to add that no one asked this of us, but I felt it was needed because I want everyone to be happy and healthy on my big day.

And thank god, she did get better. Her skin is back to looking healthy. She's eating normally, going out and back to herself.

Seeing this, my fiancé and I talked about our wedding again. I had always wanted a summer wedding on the beach, but I didn't want to wait a full year, and seeing winter wedding pictures was slowly growing on me. And so, we decided on a December wedding.

The invitations were finalized last week with the date and were all sent a couple of days ago (yes, it's early but my man and I all have big families/big group of friends and colleagues, we need the RSVPS early) Yesterday, I got an angry phone call from my sister asking how can I do something like this to her.

I was honestly confused and told her as much, and she went on to rant about how inconsiderate I was to not wait until my nephew is born, that her being MOH and 8 months pregnant is going to be hard and that she has already been through hell.

I calmly explained to her that while yes, she is MOH, I don't expect her to go above and beyond. My best friend and her had already planned a girls night back when my wedding was in July, so we're just going with that again (everything is already bought and my best friend will set it up)

I told her that my man and I have also re-booked everything ourselves (flowers, venue and catering are going to be done by our friends who have their own shops and companies) and that I'll pay to have her dress resized to accommodate her bump. I'm even taking care of hair and makeup for all my wedding party, a sort of pamper session where we'll all get ready together and take pictures.

All she's required to do is show up.

She's having none of it and is demanding we reschedule it again until next summer. I put my foot down and gave her a flat out no. That was all yesterday, and she's been radio silent.

My parents called me and asked me to reconsider, sayint that I know she's emotional and hormonal, I told them that's not an excuse for her to act like a bitch.

Her husband doesn't have a stance on this, I don't think, because he hasn't talked to either my fiancé or myself yet, I don't even think he's back in the country.

[rambleontime]

Sept 1, 2024

I'm happy summer is drawing to a close. It was a fun summer. We did so much and truly made the most of it. From biking around in Rhode Island in June, to our Euro trip in July (being Kali's maid of honor, seeing Taylor Swift live in Zurich, being in Liechtenstein), to spending the month of August in Montreal, summer has been full of adventures and experiences.

I've really pushed myself to be more adventurous and make the most of this summer ~ partly because I hope to be pregnant in the fall, god willing. So maybe not the best habits, but had a bit of a yolo mentality in August and stayed up late, went to concerts, soaked it all in. I guess all the 'normal' things to do at my age (29). But I guess prior to August, I'd been living a bit cautiously ~ and not to butcher that quote, but I don't want to live so cautiously so as to not have lived at all.

But anyway, I got my fill of all these summer adventures and I'm really looking forward to being back home in Boston and settling back into a routine! I miss sleeping in our own bed as well. Plus being in Montreal is great, but I'm starting to get agitated with the feeling that we need to make the most of it every damn day and do something after work. Sometimes, I don't want to do anything after work besides curl up with a good book or TV show. But I've been pushing myself cause again ~ assuming that once I'm pregnant I won't be going to many concerts ha! (But side note - V is way more adventurous than me vs I'm a homebody; so truth be told, I'm also looking forward to him having more work events in the fall, so I can have more alone time. I can't be with him 24/7 and honestly it's an annoying feeling that I constantly have to entertain him and do things with him while we're in Montreal - sorry not sorry. Obviously things are different in Boston cause he has hobbies, friends, etc).

Also lately I've been feeling introspective. Maybe cause my 30th birthday is coming up? I feel like all the time since covid has been a blur. A lot has happened since 2021 - we bought a house, did a lot of traveling, and I finally got promoted this year - but also looking back, in a lot of ways, it has felt like the movie groundhog day with the same thing happening over and over again. And I look back and I wonder ~ what did I accomplish for myself?

I think my biggest regret coming out of my 20s is not pushing myself more at work & in educational pursuits and just going with the flow. Which ironically is what my parents constantly criticized me for growing up ~ not being as much of a go-getter, че се вея, etc etc. Dad would always quote Alice in Wonderland:

If you don't know where you want to go, then it doesn't matter which path you take

Sadly, quite true about my life up to this point (although, these past few days I've felt this really odd power shift/motivation in me ~ like I finally know what I want; that I want to actually DO something rather than just let time pass and let life passively happen to me).

Heck, even rereading my financial reflections post from Dec '22, I realized not much has changed cause I still struggle with a lot of the same issues (although thankfully some improvement cause I'm not using BNPL anymore & I dodged the bullet of buying an expensive Van Cleef necklace and instead got my long coveted rug for the living room).

But I need to do better for myself in this next decade of life. What do I want? Cause I'm truly realizing how quickly time flies. Insanely fast. And I don't feel like I have enough to show for it.

First of all, let's start with the house. We bought our house in May 2021 and yeah, we're not all that well-off and the house decor has mostly/entirely fallen on me, but damn - it's Sept 2024 and our house still isn't fully furnished. It's honestly pathetic. I'm pretty embarrassed by it. Setting a goal to furnish it by the end of the year, cause I've had it with my lazy ass (but also with V's annoying ass reluctance to spend too much $ on the house, which is a whole other topic on its own). Also acknowledging that part of the problem is I have expensive taste and need to budget it out better. Hell, the rug I just bought from West Elm was a little over $1k~

Second of all - work. Work-life balance is important, but sadly one consequence of working from home has been that I have felt so disconnected from work. I don't listen during meetings; I multi-task. I really wonder what transferable skills am I getting from this job? I'm most definitely coasting along. I work with smart & motivated people and lately I feel like I'm just along for the ride. I did get promoted this year and my work is valued (I think). But I see how this one girl, who is younger than me, really got ahead and is managing me right now. Not sure if I would have wanted her position and to go into management, but I am seeing that while I do have seniority on the team, the new hires learn fast. Long story short - I need to use my job to expand my skill set instead of just doing the same things over and over again.

Third of all, continuing education & learning. I wish I had taken the GMAT and/or pursued a Masters degree. It's not too late, but I do feel like I had a lot of free time from 2020-2024 that I squandered/could have used better. Or at least done some more certifications or something. Also I'm frustrated with myself because my parents did talk to me about this. So I want to be better about investing in myself skill wise (not just with facials, massages, hair, and other кифла things).

I don't want to be all negative and so hard on myself. I've learned a lot over the past decade. How to take care of myself, first and foremost. Heck, when I was 19 and just starting college, I didn't even know how to do my own laundry. Now I run & manage a whole household (obviously with help from my husband, this isn't the 1500s). So yeah, I should give myself credit where credit is due. I've come into my own as a woman and a person. And I should give myself grace because I immigrated to the US as a 19-year old and "started fresh," and worked on building myself up in a country where I have no close family around.

I have a supportive community and friendships all around the world. I am kind and people like me and come to me for advice. I appreciate that!

I think some lessons for the coming decade are:

Prioritize what you want to do. Say no to things in order to free up time to do what you want to do.

Hard work pays off. And the fun times are so much more rewarding when you've worked hard.

Consistency is key. I'd rather focus on one good habit/adding an additional thing in my life than focusing on 5 and then loosing the plot.

I will continue this later...

[unseededtoast]

Turtle Doves | Joel Miller

Part Twenty One

Chapter Directory

Series Summary: In which two broken souls connect so deeply, that if one should perish, the other would surely die of a broken heart. (slow burn, timeline changes. After TLOU1, before TLOU2, assumed knowledge of infected, uses elements from both show and game)

Series Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, death, and sexual content.

Also cross posted on my Wattpad and AO3, if you prefer those formats. Here is a link to my masterlist for everything else I’ve posted.

"They want me and the girl."

A few days later, Joel is ready to get back on the road. And I'm ready as well. We all but cleared out the town's ration supply and though the food was bland, I feel the tiny bit of added weight on my hips. My body isn't used to taking it easy and having excess calories, so it clings to the extra. Too bad it'll probably all sweat off as we continue west.

We're at the point in our journey that there's nothing of great interest to be found anywhere. The land is almost completely flat and there's nothing but open fields ahead, save for the few abandoned cars here and there and the occasional hole-in-the-wall-town. And according to the map we've got a long way to travel before we reach the next point of interest. With the blistering summer heat, I'm sure it'll take us at least two weeks to get to Omaha.

To occupy myself as we continue on, I study over the clues we've found so far. By now I've committed them all to memory and I'm eager to see if we can find anything else. If we're following the same path these people took, then we're bound to find something sooner or later, right?

"How did you and the girl pass the time?" I ask, needing to know how they were able to take the long stretch of nothingness. Joel shrugs his shoulders,

"I didn't have to do much of anything. She doesn't know how to shut up." A ghost of a laugh follows his answer.

"What did she talk about?" I inquire, needing something new to stimulate my mind. If I keep pondering the same pieces of information I fear I might actually start sleepwalking. Joel slows his pace to walk next to me and he meets my eyes.

"She collected these joke books whenever she found them. Full of the most awful jokes you've ever heard. But they filled the silence and made her happy." He tells me and I nod, getting a better understanding of who this girl is. I'm curious to know her name, but I feel like that still might be too intimate of a detail for him to tell me. After all, he's very intent on protecting her.

"I'm sure you remember some of them, run 'em by me." My hand comes up to block the sunlight from my eyes so I can get a clear look at his face.

Joel and I had decided to stop travelling at night after the night he got stabbed. While the weather was certainly nicer, we realized that we very well could miss dangerous things like another trap. So we started travelling by daylight again.

"Do you want to hear a joke about pizza? Never mind, it's too cheesy." He grimaces as the words come out of his mouth and I can't help but to smile.

"You're right, that is pretty bad." I agree with his earlier statement and he shakes his head, as if to rid himself of the joke.

"The thing is, she doesn't even know what pizza is. She didn't get it." He chuckles and I join him.

"It's so weird to think that there are kids out there that don't know what pizza is." I say, remembering when pizza was a go-to party food, or Friday dinner.

"Don't I know it. Girl was only three when everything happened." He adds, looking back down to where he's walking so he doesn't trip.

"So she's about thirteen then, right?" I ask, knowing my math is right.

"Yeah." Joel confirms.

"She's right around Lucas' age. That's so weird to think about. What he would be like as a teenager." I think out loud, realizing I never gave much thought into the idea. It's always hard for me to think about things like that, it always seems to reopen the wound that will never truly heal.

"Sometimes I wonder what Sarah would be like. She'd be in her early twenties right now." He shakes his head in disbelief. I sigh, understanding how he feels.

"Well if she took after you any, she'd be a strong woman, sure of herself. She'd probably be someone others counted on." Joel turns his head to look down at me, and I stare right back into his doe eyes, wanting him to know I mean it.

"And I'm sure Lucas would take after you. He'd be caring, compassionate, and not afraid to stand up for himself." Heat tinges my cheeks, and not just from the sun either. I'm sure my face is far too sunburnt for Joel to notice, so I don't look away. I see the truth in his eyes.

"They would've been people we're proud of, I have no doubts about that." I half-smile and rest a hand on Joel's shoulder reassuringly. His eyes look down at my hand and he reaches up to place his larger hand over mine and he squeezes gently.

The rest of the day passes in silence, each of us trying not to pass out from heat exhaustion. Summer should be just about over with, so I'm not quite sure why it's still so hot out here. Our water has been rationed to the best of our ability, but our supply is running low. In the middle of America, there ought to be some body of water nearby.

The sun has faded behind the horizon, leaving the two of us in the middle of nowhere, completely in the open. But at least the air has cooled down. Not that it matters much, my skin exudes heat from where it's been burnt.

"Lemme see that map." Joel says, his voice cracking from dehydration. Lazily, I fish the paper out of my bag and hand it to him. He squints in the moonlight as he tries to see where we're at.

"We're in the middle of nowhere." My voice sounds foreign and scratchy from how dry my throat is.

"Ten more miles and there's a small town." The paper gets folded back on itself and passed back to me.

My feet drag across the deteriorating asphalt and I'm not sure I've got ten more miles left in me tonight. Situations like this make me miss the farm and the place we just left.

The next ten miles feels like fifty, but we make it, eventually. There's not even one stoplight in this place, and things look fairly overgrown. I'm willing to bet there's nothing here. But before we can settle, Joel insists that we clear all four buildings.

"There, took no time at all." He says after checking out the fourth building. Just as I suspected, there are no people and no infected.

My body has no energy to respond to him, and I drop my bag from my shoulders. The muscles in my shoulders are so tense it almost hurts and I try to rub them out as I sit on the ground of the fourth building we cleared. As I hit the ground with a thud, my eyelids feel like they've been glued shut and I decide to just call it a night on the cold concrete.

Turns out, sleeping on concrete at my age is not the wisest decision. Before I even open my eyes I feel my spine pop and crack with each miniscule movement I make. My shoulders still hurt to the point they're borderline cramping and I know it's going to be another long day ahead of us. Taking a few more moments of semi-peace, I brace myself for standing up. When I finally find the motivation within to move, my assessment had been right, everything aches. Just another unfortunate fact of life.

The morning sun brings warm, red light into the building we've used for the night and as I rub my eyes and look around I see Joel is nowhere to be found. Unlike the last time this happened, I simply shrug my backpack on and start looking. He's around here somewhere, I know he wouldn't just leave and if there was an issue, he'd wake me up.

I step out of the building, letting the door creak shut behind me. Thankfully, I don't have to look far for Joel. He's leaning up against an old telephone pole, sharpening his blade with a rock. The sound of the door alerts him to my presence, and he gives me a weak smile.

"Sleep good?" His deep morning voice asks. I contemplate lying to him, but I know he'd see right through it.

"Not at all. You?" I ask, yawning.

"No." It seems neither of us are doing too well this morning.

"Maybe we can find some water today." I offer up, trying to keep the last shred of optimism inside me alive. But I find it hard to buy my own words. Joel shakes his head,

"If we're lucky. But come check this out before we go, think you might want to see this." He turns his head and puts the blade away. Joel walks to the first building we cleared and points to the side of it, the far side we hadn't had to walk past last night.

On the cracked side of the building is a large letter 'T' spraypainted. Just like it was at the Firefly hideout. I step forward and put my fingertips to the painting, noticing that the paint hasn't been here long enough to crack from weathering.

"It's fairly new." I tell Joel, wiping my hand on my pant leg. My eyes meet his as I try to gauge his reaction to it.

"That's what I thought too, and then look at this." He walks to the front of the building and walks in. My eyes grow wide when I enter. It seems our exhaustion made us blind last night.

In front of me sits an old radio transponder with a thin layer of dust on it. Above the transponder on the wall is a montage of various papers and photos. The jagged pieces of paper and polaroid photos are stuck to the wall with thumbtacks. One of the photos catches my eye and I rip it down, tack falling to the floor. The man in the image smiles back at me, a large letter T carved into his chest, revealed by an ill-fitting green muscle shirt.

"This is the one I killed back in Boston, when we went our separate ways." I show Joel the image and he looks at it with analyzing eyes.

"You sure?" He asks and I nod, knowing for sure that it's the same man.

"I know it is. He was wearing that same green shirt, he had the T carved into his chest." I remember the recently-turned man well, for he was the start of this hunt. Joel turns his attention back to the wall, as do I.

I take the rest of the photos down and study them, but I recognize nobody else. Another photo shows the same man in the green shirt surrounded by three others, all who have the letter T carved into their skin somewhere. One of the pictures is of a man with blood dripping down his face and in the white space under the developed image the words 'First Act of Justice' is scrawled.

Three other photos are of dead people. One with her throat slit, one with his abdomen shot out, and the third with her neck broken. All three have the same caption underneath them, 'You too shall be judged'. I pass the photos to Joel and he studies them carefully. Once he shuffled through them, he looks back up to me,

"What else is there?" My attention turns to the other five photos in my hands.

Two of the five are group shots, all men with Ts carved into their skin, their smiles wide and their eyes crazed. One of the others shows a man with a severed head in his hand, the caption reading 'Blessed are they who maintain justice'. Another shows someone hanged from a tree and its caption says, 'Justice without force is powerless'. The last photo is of a young girl and the scratchy handwriting underneath says 'The golden eye of justice sees'.

"What the fuck?" I whisper under my breath as I hand the pictures to Joel. Whoever these people are, they're even more deranged than I could have imagined. My mind begins working overtime and I start focusing on the papers attached to the wall.

I take them down and begin reading through them. Some are radio frequencies and I set them aside, others are full of random quotes and very few seem to be full length letters. My eyes scan over the quotes and see that they're all related to the enactment of justice, what justice means, and why it's important to society.

"The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law. It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered. Sometimes to get justice you must take it for yourself." I read some of the quotes out loud as I scan the ripped pieces of paper. Before I read the lengthy letters, I look back to Joel, who is still staring at the photos.

"These people, they're obsessed with justice. Or what they think is justice. But how can their mission from the Fireflies be considered just?" I ask him, failing to see how their mission fits into their narrative about being the enactors of justice. Joel breaks his stare from the photos and looks over to me, eyeing the papers in my hands.

"I don't know." His voice is almost a whisper and it seems like we're both equally lost. I wrack my brain for any sort of clue, and remember the conversation in Trevor's office before we killed everyone.

"Joel." I say, realization making my skin feel cold.

"What?" He asks, tilting his head,

"Back at Trevor's office. He said something about people paying for Marlene and the cure." I let Joel connect the rest of the dots and when he finally realizes how the Fireflies' mission fits into this T group narrative, a murderous scowl plasters itself on his face.

"They want me and the girl." His voice is strained and I turn my focus back to the letters in my hand. I don't know what I can say to make him feel better. Truthfully, I don't believe such words exist.

The first letter in my hand is about a small group of these men venturing off for supplies. It reads more like a diary, or entry log, than a letter, and I let it fall to the ground. The second letter is more interesting, and it lets me know that this place is used as an interim camp when they move around the country. By their words, it seems they have these substations littered throughout the country. This group is growing, multiplying, and moving through the countryside relatively undetected. I pass the letter to Joel to read and go about looking through the rest of the building.

I take care to look for more letters or photos scattered throughout the main portion of the building, but I come up empty handed. Joel and I had only cleared the main rooms of each building last night, deciding that if anything were trapped behind other doors, that wasn't going to be our issue; and so I want to be certain that every square inch is searched because it sure is our problem now. After I'm satisfied with my sweep of the main room, I move to the back.

The first door is a supply closet, full of old, dried up cleaning materials. The second door is a restroom, rendered useless from the lack of plumbing. By the time my fingers grasp the handle of the third door, I smell something rancid. Instead of opening it and being surprised by infected, I knock on the door, but am met with silence. The possibilities of what it is quickly dwindles and I feel sick to my stomach; I've smelled this before.

Taking a deep breath, I swing the door open and gag when I see what awaited me. Flies swarm out of the room and I heave again, my body wanting to expel whatever is in my stomach. Joel's heavy footsteps let me know he's coming to see what the commotion is all about and through watery eyes, I see that he's stopped a few feet away, his sleeve covering his nose.

"My God." He says, eyes trained on the grisly sight before us.

Behind this door lies a dead raccoon along with three dead bodies. All badly decomposed, at least a few weeks old. The flesh has slid off the bones from the heat and turned into a fatty, congealed liquid that's surely rotting the floor underneath. Bits and pieces of skin still clings to some bones and clumps of hair are scattered throughout the puddle of liquid.

Once my eyes have stopped watering, I study the scene, seeing a machete stuck in one of the people's vertebrae. Another has a hunting knife stuck through its temples. The third's skull is twisted unnaturally from the rest of the bones. These people were all murdered. I step back from the doorway, unable to handle the stench any longer, and turn on my heels to return to the main room.

My hands rest on the top of my head as I pace back and forth, trying to bring some semblance of rationality into my mind. I just found three more victims of this group left to rot away in some building. Flashes of the murder scenes in Boston flash behind my eyelids, anger making my blood boil. These people don't get to decide who lives and who dies based on their twisted sense of 'justice'.

Whoever these people are, they can't be left to their own devices. They've proven that they have no respect for life, that they're willing to kill and mutilate anyone under the guise of 'justice'. I see right through their façade, it's obvious to me that these people are using justice as an excuse to do whatever they want, like their actions are excusable and righteous.

My pacing comes to a halt as Joel joins me back in the main room and the blood rushing through my veins feels as if it's been electrified. The photos in Joel's hand catch my eye and gruesome fabrications embed themselves in my mind. Instead of strangers being photographed mutilated, it's Joel. It's his head in the person's hand, it's him who's been shot through the abdomen. That thought alone sends a wave of bloodlust through me, knowing very well that it's the intention of these people to find and kill Joel.

Beside me, my hands ball into tight fists and with each flash of twisted imagination, my heartbeat resounds louder and louder in my ears.

My gaze lifts from the photos to Joel's eyes, who looks back at me in confusion. With fresh determination and solid conviction I make a promise to Joel.

"I'm going to find, and I'm going to kill every. Last. One of them."

Part Twenty Two